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PRINCETON,  N.  J. 


*S 


BV  210  .F345  1890 
Faunce,  D.  W.  1829-1911. 
Prayer  as  a  theory  and  a 


shei,      fact 


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THE  FL.ETCHER  PRIZE  ESSAY,  1889. 


PRAYER 


AS    A 


TtjEO^Y  AND  A  PACT, 


BY 


REV.  D.  W.*FAUNCE.  D.  D. 


AMERICAN  TRACT  SOCIETY, 

150   NASSAU    STREET   NEW    YORK. 


COPYRIGHT,  1890. 
AMERICAN  TRACT  SOCIETY. 


CONTENTS, 


CHAPTER   I. 

PAGE 

The  Possibility  of  Prayer  as  Heard  and  Answered,       7 

(a.)     The  two  beings  involved. 

(b.)     The  intellectual  relation  of  the  two. 

(c.)     The  similar  intellectual  work. 

CPIAPTER    n. 

The  Probability  of  Prayer  as  Heard  and  Answered,  22 

(a.;     The  two  beings,   God  and   man,    are   both  moral 

beings, 
(b.)     They  are  both  at  work  on  the  moral  plane. 

CHAPTER  in. 

The  Law  of  Personality  in  its  Bearing  on  Prayer,    .       39 

(a.)  Personality  in  God. 
(b.)  Personality  in  man. 
(c.)     The  law  calls  for  prayer  and  secures  answer. 

CHAPTER   IV. 

The  Factor  of  Sin  as  Affecting  Prayer,      .        .         .51 

(a.)     It  does  not  destroy  the  natural  need, 
(b.)     It  makes  it  the  more  necessary, 
(c.)     Through  God's  special  mercy,  it  does  not  make  the 
answer  less  probable. 


4  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER   V. 

PAGE 

The  Kingdom  of  God  as  Related  to  Prayer,        .         .       68 

(a.)     It  is  originally  arranged  for  prayer  and  its  answers, 
(b.)     The  kingdom  in  the  human  soul, 
(c.)     The  kingdom  in  its  progress  in  the  world, 
(d.)     Both  these  involve  the  natural  and  the  supernatural, 
(e.)     At  every  point,  the  work  is  conditioned  on  prayer 
heard  and  answered. 

CHAPTER   VI. 

Prayer  as  Related  to  Natural  Law,  .         .        .       io6 

.(a.)     Theory  of  original  foresight  and  arrangement. 
\/(b.)     Theory  of  a  law  of  miracles, 
(c.)     Theory  of  personal  will. 

CHAPTER   VII. 
Negative  Answers  to  Prayer  ARE  Actual  Answers,    .     120 

(a.)     Such  answers  required  when  the  petition  is  out  of 

line  with  the  dispensation, 
(b.)     The  divine  compassion  secures  denial  when  not  in 

accord  with  divine  will, 
(c.)     Deferred  answer  is  not  denied  petition. 

CHAPTER   VIII. 
The  Reactions  of  Sin  as  they  Induce  Prayer,     .        .     140 
(a.)     The  reactions  of  error, 
(b.)     The  reactions  of  ages, 
(c.)     The  reactions  of  souls. 

CHAPTER   IX. 
The  Circular  Motion  of  Prayer,  ,        .        .        .     i57 

(a.)     It  descends  from  God. 

(b.)     It  takes  in  man's  voluntary  petitions  on  its  way. 
(c.)     It  rises  again  to  God  ;  since  its   Inspirer  and  its 
Answerer  are  one. 


CONTENTS.  5 

CHAPTER   X. 

PAGE 

The  Lord's  Prayer  as  our  Model,  ....     171 

(a.)  In  its  arrangement, 

(b.)  In  its  petitions, 

(c.)  In  its  scope, 

(d.)  In  its  spirit. 

CHAPTER   XI. 

Supposed  Limitations  of  Prayer,  .        *.        .        .        .186 

(a.)     From  man's  feebleness, 
(b.)     From  God's  greatness. 

CHAPTER    XII. 
Prayer  in  its  Prophecy. 201 


(a.)  Its  increasing  volume. 

(b.)  Its  increasing  purity. 

(c.)  Its  natural  result. 

(d.)  The  ultimate  man  a  praying  man. 

(e.)  The  ultimate  age  a  praying  age. 


\ 


PRAYER 

AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 


CHAPTER    I. 

THE   POSSIBILITY   OF  PRAYER. 

Two  gentlemen  were  strolling  leisurely  by  a 
lighted  chapel  into  which  people  were  passing, 
evidently  for  their  weekly  prayer-service.  Nod- 
ding toward  the  open  door,  one  of  them  said  to 
the  other,  "  Do  you  believe  in  this  matter  of 
prayer?"  "Yes,"  was  the  somewhat  reluctant 
answer,  "  I  suppose  I  do,  in  a  certain  way.  I 
think  it  a  good  thing  for  those  who  really  believe 
in  it.  But,"  he  continued,  "  whether  there  is  any 
one  at  the  other  end  of  the  line  who  does  act- 
ually listen  and  respond,  is  a  thing  about  which 
I  am  not  certain."  ''  It  seems  to  me,"  replied  the 
first  speaker,  "  that  your  position  is  that  of  a  man 
who  believes  in  the  prayer  but  not  in  the  answer." 


8     PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

It  will  be  the  contention  of  this  volume  that 
all  true  prayer  is  answered.  It  will  be  claimed 
that  this  exercise  of  prayer  involves  the  personal 
existence  of  two  beings,  God  and  man — one  of 
whom  offers  petition,  confession,  worship,  and 
thanksgiving,  and  the  other  of  whom  answers  the 
petition  in  affirmation  or  in  denial,  receives  the 
worship,  listens  to  the  confession,  and  accepts 
the  thanksgiving. 

It  will  be  claimed  that  prayer  is  an  actual  and 
recognizable  force  in  the  universe ;  that,  by  the 
appointment  of  God,  it  has  its  place  in  the  origi- 
nal scheme  of  things;  that  it  has  scope  in  God's 
providential  plan,  office  in  his  gracious  adminis- 
tration, authority  in  the  promise,  and  confirma- 
tion in  the  fulfilment  of  God ;  that  its  negative 
answers  are  as  really  responses  as  its  affirmative 
replies;  that  what  men  call  its  limitations  are 
really  extensions ;  that  deferred  answer  is  not 
denied  petition;  that  its  beginnings  are  with  God, 
from  whose  throne  its  vast  curve  sweeps  down- 
ward, passing  in  the  lower  edge  of  its  circumfer- 
ence through  the  sphere  of  our  voluntary  peti- 
tion, and  thence  it  mounts  again,  curving  up- 
ward, and  completing  the  circle  as  it  comes  back 
to  Him  by  whom  it  was  first  inspired  and  then 
directed  and  is  now  finally  accepted ;  that  the 
objections    usually   urged    against    prayer,  when 


THE    rOSSIBILITV    OF   PRAYER.  9 

closely  examined  and  freed  of  all  misconception, 
are  among  the  most  potent  proofs  of  its  efficacy; 
that  its  moods  and  methods  befit  men  in  all  the 
variety  of  their  human  experience  on  earth ;  and 
that  it  is  a  factor  in  producing  character  of  such 
a  kind  that  the  prayers  of  earth,  in  those  thus 
wrought  upon,  will  antedate  the  praises  of  heaven. 

The  general  order  just  outlined  will  be  fol- 
lowed in  this  discussion. 

If  there  were  only  one  being  In  the  universe,  and 
that  one  being  knew,  or  even  believed,  that  there 
was  no  other,  there  could  be  no  prayer.  The 
one  being  might  shout  in  joy  or  howl  in  anguish, 
but  that  would  not  be  request  or  petition.  He 
might  try  in  his  frenzy  to  impose  on  himself,  and 
to  act  as  if  there  were  another  to  hear  and  re- 
spond, waking  thereby  the  world's  echoes.  He 
might  set  himself  to  use  all  fit  forms  of  supplica- 
tion or  of  entreaty,  under  the  plea  of  doing  him- 
self good.  But  all  such  expressions  of  pain  or 
passion  would  come  to  nothing  in  the  end.  They 
would  only  react  for  his  own  harm,  for  he 
would  know  that  he  was  attempting  an  imposi- 
tion on  himself,  and  his  words  would  falter  and 
freeze  on  his  lips.  Hume  says,  and  very  justly, 
"  We  can  make  use  of  no  expression  or  even 
thought  -in  prayers  or  entreaties  which  does  not 
imply  that  these  prayers  have  an  influence."    And 


10  PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

we  are  told  in  the  Scriptures,  "  He  that  cometh 
to  God  7/uist  believe  that  He  is,  and  that  He  is 
the  rewarder  of  them  that  diligently  seek  him." 

The  two  beings,  God  and  man,  involved  in  this 
act  of  prayer,  are,  personally,  minds  or  spirits. 

In  his  book  entitled  ''  Primitive  Culture,"  Ed- 
ward B.  Tylor  gives  the  fit  name  of  animism  to 
the  universal  conviction  that  mind  is  distinct  from 
matter.  Assembling  a  vast  mass  of  evidence  in 
proof  of  his  position,  he  says,  "  We  must  take 
our  basis  of  inquiry  in  observation  rather  than  in 
speculation ;  and  we  have  to  admit  that  the  belief 
in  spiritual  beings  appears  among  all  low  races 
with  whom  we  have  a  thoroughly  intimate  ac- 
quaintance." Such  a  universal  conviction  among 
such  inferior  races  has  been  called  "  the  knowl- 
edge of  God  reduced  to  its  lowest  terms."  But 
among  the  highest  races  there  is  also  an  intense 
conviction  that  another  Spirit  than  ourselves  ex- 
ists. Lift  the  conception  to  its  highest  terms, 
and  it  gives  us  God.* 

*  In  Timbuctoo,  the  natives  write  their  prayers  on  the  section 
of  a  tree,  carrying  it  to  a  spring  of  water  which  will  wash  it  off, 
and  so  send  the  prayer  away.  Similarly,  the  Thibetan  pastes  his 
prayer  on  a  revolving  cylinder  and  sets  it  in  the  nearest  waterfall, 
that  its  face  may  be  ever  toward  God.  The  Chinese  burn  gilded 
strips  of  paper  and  consult  the  ashes,  as  the  Romans  the  entrails 
of  the  victims  of  the  altar.  Even  the  lower  class  of  the  Moham- 
medans, while  holding  to  one  supreme  God,  believe  in  inferior 
deities,  and  so  cast  their  written  praj'ers  upon  the  bosom  of  their 


THE    POSSIBILITY    OF   PRAYER.  II 

Is  this  universal  affirmation  false  or  is  it  true? 

If  it  be  not  true,  or,  indeed,  if  there  be  any 
serious  doubt  about  its  truth,  the  discussion  must 
close  here  at  the  outset.  For  prayer  is  going  to 
be  vastly  more  than  the  bare  recognition  of  a  dis- 
tant fact,  like  that  of  the  solar  spectrum  in  the 
far-away  stars.  A  belief  that  God  is,  is  funda- 
mental. His  existence  must  not  be  a  speculation 
to  us,  nor  an  indistinct  inference.  He  is  not  a 
universally  diffused  ether,  or  a  shapeless  phan- 
tom, or  an  impersonality,  or  a  force,  or  an  es- 
sence, but  the  actual  personal  God,  if  we  are  go- 
ing to  pray  to  Him  and  get  from  Him  an  answer. 

No  less  must  the  fact  be  established  for  our- 
selves that  we  are  actual  persons.  The  validity 
of  the  evidence  for  man  as  an  individual  must  be 
undisputed.  Happily,  here  doubt  is  impossible. 
For  the  instant  question,  when  man  says  that  he 
doubts,  is  this,  "  What  is  it  that  doubts,  and  who 


sacred  river,  holding  that  the  god  of  the  waters  is  great  enough 
to  ward  off  the  approach  of  disease. 

And  over  against  these  lowest  populations  it  would  be  easy  to 
cite  the  most  eminent  men,  some  of  them  not  Christian  believers, 
who  own  a  God.  "  I  have  lived,"  said  Benjamin  Franklin,  in  the 
convention  for  forming  a  Constitution,  "for  a  long  time,  and  the 
longer  I  live  the  more  convincing  proofs  I  see  of  this  truth,  that 
God  governs  the  affairs  of  man.  I  therefore  beg  leave  to  move 
that  henceforth  prayers  imploring  the  assistance  of  heaven  on  our 
deliberations  be  held  in  this  assembly  every  morning  before  we 
proceed  to  business." 


12  PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY    AND   A   FACT. 

is  it  that  asks  the  question  ?  "  *'  I  thiyik^  therefore 
I  am  "  is  an  argument  which  thousands  feel  and 
rest  upon  with  absolute  certainty,  who  could  not 
put  their  conviction  into  logical  statement. 

' '  The  baby,  new  to  earth  and  sky, 
What  time  his  tender  palm  is  pressed 
Against  the  circle  of  the  breast, 
Has  never  thought  that  "  this  is  I." 
But  as  he  grows,  he  gathers  much. 
And  learns  the  use  of  "  I "  and  "  me," 
And  finds  "  I  am  not  what  I  see, 
I'm  other  than  the  things  I  touch." 
So  rounds  he  to  a  separate  mind, 
From  whence  clear  memory  may  begin. 
As  through  the  frame  that  binds  him  in 
His  isolation  grows  defined." 

When  plain  men  wish  to  express  the  utmost 
degree  of  conviction,  they  say,  "  I  am  as  certain 
of  that  thing  as  that  I  exist." 

All  logical  minds  must  have  similar  powers. 
Exceedingly  unlike  may  be  the  degree,  but  the 
powers  must  be  enough  alike  to  work  on  the 
same  logical  plane.  So  far  as  we  can  under- 
stand, the  highest  mode  of  intelligence  is  con- 
nected with  reasoning  powers.  The  reasonable 
is  of  higher  grade  than  the  instinctive.  All 
minds  made  up  so  as  to  use  reason,  must  be  simi- 
lar in  make  and  in  working.  They  must  work  on 
the  plane  of  "  the  true  and  the  false."  All  things 
in  the  intellectual  sphere  are  measured  by  that 
one  plumb-line.     In  this  realm  of  the  logical,  the 


THE   POSSIBILITY   OF   PRAYER.  1 3 

realm  measured  by  this  one  rule  of  *'  the  true  and 
the  false,"  we  do  our  work,  and  the  highest 
worker  in  this  realm  we  call  God.  Dropping, 
here  and  now,  that  we  m.ay  the  better  take  them 
up  by-and-by,  all  those  convictions  usually  termed 
"  moral "  and  "  spiritual,"  holding  now  to  the 
word  spiritual  only  in  its  merely  intellectual  sense, 
we  may  just  glance  a  moment  or  two,  less  to  in- 
crease our  confidence  and  more  to  realize  our  im- 
pression, at  the  way  in  which  we  come  to  be 
obliged,  in  this  logical  realm,  to  believe  in  our 
God. 

There  is  a  quick,  sharp  argument  that  satisfies 
most  men.  It  is  this.  A  designer  will  manifest 
design  in  his  work.  Evidences  of  designing  are 
everywhere  about  us,  in  earth,  in  air,  in  sky;  are 
seen  equally  in  things,  and  in  the  law  of  them ; 
are  obvious  in  forces,  and  in  the  way  they  are 
made  to  work;  in  tendencies,  and  the  ends  to- 
ward which  they  are  developing;  in  these  minds 
so  made  up  as  to  refer  in  every  case  a  design  to 
a  designing  mind,  a  plan  to  a  planning  mind,  a 
universal  plan  of  things  to  a  universally  existing 
and  planning  mind — and  this  mind  is  God.  The 
statement  of  the  proposition  is,  to  many  persons, 
the  best  proof,  for  it  is  to  them  nearly  or  quite 
self-evident. 

It  has  indeed  been  said  in  reply  that   the  argu- 


14         PRAYER  AS   A  THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

ment  from  design  proves  a  very  grand  and  super- 
natural being,  who,  since  he  is  the  highest  being 
we  can  know,  deserves  our  recognition,  reverence, 
and  worship.  He  is  Creator,  Sustainer,  Sover- 
eign Ruler  over  all  we  know.  But  it  is  urged  that 
he  need  not  be  the  Absolute  God  ;  that  the  argu- 
ment goes  very  far  but  does  not  fully  and,  at  the 
last  point,  actually  reach  so  far  up  as  to  prove  the 
One  Ever-living  and  Eternal  God.  Why  not,  say 
some,  own  this  designer,  architect,  worker,  just  a 
little  short  of  the  Sovereign  God  ?  Few  will  see 
the  difference ;  yet  some  would  claim  that  there 
might  be  a  flaw  in  some  far-up  link  of  the  chain. 

'  Suppose  we  admit  it.  Then  we  have  this  to  say, 
that  when  we  have  gone  up  as  far  as  our  reason 
can  go,  there  is  a  round  out  of  sight,  a  final 
round  of  our  ladder   not  quite  discernible;  but 

\  that  with  every  step  in  our  climbing,  so  far  from 
^he  prize  eluding  us,  we  have  grown  in  the  con- 
viction that  God  is  there,  that  in  that  direction 
lies  the  infinite  trend  of  things  and  the  final  goal 
of  thought.  Indeed,  for  some  minds  this  trend  of 
things  is  the  best  possible  proof  of  God.  The 
line  of  approach  is  better  than  any  supposed 
finite  culmination. 

But  the  two  ways  of  reaching  the  same  convic- 
tion are  not  in  themselves  really  antagonistic. 
They  are  methods  suited  to  unlike  minds.     The 


THE   POSSIBILITY   OF   TRAYER.  15 

broad  way  of  our  human  reason  is  wide  enough 
to  admit  upon  it  many  paths,  some  of  which  run 
nearer,  it  may  be,  to  the  middle  of  the  course  than 
others,  but  all  of  which  are  within  the  happy 
limiting  hnes  that  bound  the  truth.  There  are 
minds  so  constituted  that  a  grand  trend  is  more 
convincing  than  the  sight  of  the  ultimate  goal. 
Inclosed  in  the  circular  box  men  call  a  compass 
is  a  delicate  needle,  which,  however  you  dis- 
turb it,  trembles  back  to  its  pole.  And  it  does 
this  because  all  over  the  earth  run  unseen  mae- 

o 

,  netic  currents  converging  toward  an  unseen  mag- 
\  /  netic  centre  far  away  in  the  North.  And  men 
sail  on  every  ocean  of  the  world,  and  measure 
their  land  on  every  continent  of  the  round  globe, 
by  that  little  needle  that  follows  the  trend  of 
those  magnetic  currents  toward  the  pole.  But, 
then,  no  mortal  foot  ever  touched  that  pole,  no 
mortal  eye  ever  saw  it.  It  is,the  world  over,  07ify 
a  trend.  And  yet  on  that  trend  rests  all  the  sci- 
ence of  navigation  and  all  the  science  of  mensur- 
ation. And  not  only  the  earth  beneath,  but  the 
•  wide  heavens  are  marked  out  and  mapped  off  in 
hnes  of  gigantic  boundary  by  that  steady  trend 
toward  a  pole  that  no  man  has  ever  seen  or 
touched.  The  trend  toward  God  in  all  forms  of 
human  thought  is  just  as  distinct.  And  he  is  as 
unreasonable  who  would  destroy  all  the  fair  fab- 


l6    PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

ric  of  modern  sciences,  celestial  and  terrestrial, 
because  no  human  foot  has  as  yet  touched  that 
pole,  as  he  who  denies  the  culminating  point  of 
all  religious  trend  because  his  reason  cannot  put 
its  logical  finger  on  his  God. 

Paley's  argument  for  design,  founded  on  the 
watch  supposed  to  be  discovered  on  a  heath,  and 
by  the  finder  to  be  accounted  for,  has  served  its 
purpose  in  the  form  in  which  he  gave  it.  Men 
then  were  considering  the  facts  simply  and  only, 
and  from  these  alone  Paley's  inference  was 
strictly  logical.  The  watch  had  a  maker.  But 
now  that  both  facts  and  the  law  of  them  are  mat- 
ters for  consideration,  the  inference  of  a  design- 
ing mind,  so  far  from  being  weakened,  is  every 
way  broadened  and  strengthened.  The  design 
runs  back  as  far  as  the  law  is  seen  to  exist.  The 
further  the  line  of  development,  and  the  wider 
the  range  of  the  laws  under  which  that  develop- 
ment is  seen  to  have  taken  place,  the  larger  is  the 
design,  the  greater  the  wisdom  and  power  that 
are  manifested,  and  the  stronger  the  argument 
for  a  God.  Instead  of  the  one  fact,  you  have 
now  to  consider  the  thousand  previous  facts  that 
led  up  to  it,  and  the  longer  the  line  of  the  devel- 
opment, the  more  remarkable  becomes  the  de- 
sign of  the  designing  mind.  For  law  is  only 
method,  in   accordance   with   which    fact    comes 


THE   POSSIBILITY   OF   PRAYER.  1 7 

into  notice.  The  larger  the  play  of  the  forces, 
and  the  more  complex  their  working,  the  more 
the  need  of  control,  lest  they  destroy  the  devel- 
opment. 

Says  another,  "  Since  we  find  that  these  forces 
can  be  controlled  by  us  within  certain  limits,  the 
most  reasonable  conclusion  seems  to  be  that  they 
(these  laws)  are  connected  with  another  Will,  *  in 
whom  is  no  variableness,'  and  who  is  '  the  same 
yesterday,  to-day,  and  forever.'  " 

When  Mansel  argued  that  the  Infinite  One 
must  be  the  Unknowable  One,  and  yet  strove 
vainly  to  escape  from  the  consequence  of  his  re- 
morseless logic,  it  only  needed  that  some  one 
should  point  out  the  wide  difference  between 
comprehending  God  and  apprehending  him.  On 
the  shore  of  the  ocean  one  may  feel  the  salt  sea 
breeze  as  it  fans  his  cheek,  and  may  taste  the 
spray  that  loads  the  air,  and  may  mark  the  white- 
winged  ships,  flying  the  flags  of  all  nationalities, 
and  in  this  way  may  apprehend  clearly  and  cer- 
tainly the  fact  that  the  vast  body  of  water  on 
■\^  which  he  is  looking  is  the  ocean,  even  though 
he  knows  that  his  vision  cannot  comprehend  its 
breath,  nor  take  in  the  sight  of  the  continents 
beyond  its  rolling  waste  of  waves. 

And  those  who  claim  to  have  rational  intuition 
of  God   are  not   to   be   overlooked,  either  in  the 


1 8  TRAYER   AS   A  THEORY  AND   A   FACT. 

goodly  number  of  them  or  the  intellectual  force 
they  carry.  It  is  claimed  that  the  idea  of  God 
is  involved  in  the  very  process  of  our  human 
thinking;  that  every  thought  is  an  inquiry  for  a 
cause,  and  so  comprehends  in  it  the  final  idea  of 
a  First  or  a  Chief  Cause ;  that  all  right  thinking 
involves  a  Standard  Thinker;  that  God  is  in- 
volved in  all  thought,  just  as  is  self-hood ;  that 
God  is  the  ''  Alter  Ego,"  as  the  thinker  is  himself 
the  "  Ego."  Thus,  when  we  are  born,  we  are 
J^  ushered  into  a  scheme  of  things  already  existing, 
where  one  finds  that  the  great  distinction  be- 
tween the  "  true  and  the  false  "  is  not  established 
by  us,  but  is  a  perpetual  existence — made  so  by 
the  Eternal  Mind.  So  that  it  becomes  as  true 
of  mind  as  of  body,  that  in  God  ''we  live  and 
move  and  have  our  being."  And  thus  we  find 
the  intellectual  plane  on  which  we  meet  God  and 
**  can  think  over  his  thoughts."  And  meeting  on 
this  plane,  we  see  the  possibility  of  two  beings 
like  God  and  man  so  entering  into  a  relation 
with  each  other  that  the  one  can  give  answer  to 

/  ^.  the  other's  prayer. 

J^  And  it  has  also  been  urged  that  the  human 
mind  is  constituted  in  such  a  way  as  to  be  re- 
ceptive to  the  idea  of  the  One  Living  and  True 
God ;  that  we  are  so  made  up  intellectually  as  to 
be  in  Avaiting  for  the  idea;  that  the  idea  finds  an- 


THE   POSSIBILITY   OF   PRAYER.  1 9 

ticlpations  and  preparations  for  it  in  our  nature; 
that  the  suggestion  of  it,  from  whatsoever  source, 
finds  a  readiness  of  response  that  amounts  to  an 
affinity  for  it ;  that,  whether  it  rises  out  of  the 
soul  within,  born  of  the  lower  consciousness,  or 
starts  out  of  our  emotional  nature  to  be  after- 
ward received  and  justified  by  the  intellect,  it  is 
always  presented  to  the  mind;  that  everywhere 
man  is  constitutionally  fitted  to  know  God,  and 
so  by  every  avenue  of  his  being,  mental  and  moral, 
he  is  made  up  to  apprehend  the  fact  that  lies  at 
the  basis  of  all  facts,  that  God  is. 

To  still  others,  the  genesis  of  the  idea  is  in  the 
correlative  demands  of  the  nature  alike  of  God 
and  of  man.  God  is,  as  they  say,  the  comple- 
ment truth  to  man's  being.  God  has  need  of 
some  such  being  to  bless  and  love,  a  being  with 
whose  welfare  he  can  charge  himself,  and  whose 
prayer  he  can  hear;  a  being  outranking  angels, 
with  powers  for  understanding  in  some  degree 
his  works,  and  his  providence,  and  his  Word.  So 
that,  **  Let  us  make  man,"  is  the  expression  of  a 
yearning  for  a  being  of  high  moral  grade,  "  made 
in  the  image  of  God."  And  in  turn  man,  in  his 
dependence,  needs  God's  help  and  sustenance; 
and  in  his  littleness,  needs  God's  greatness.  Man 
is  made  to  cling  and  clasp,  as  the  vine  its  oak. 
He  is  never  centred  in  self,  but  is  to  be  centred 


20  PRAYER   AS   A   TPIEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

in  God.  God  is  the  cap-stone  of  man's  thought, 
as  well  as  the  supply  for  the  yearning  of  man's 
heart.  As  the  earth  needs  a  sun  and  was  made 
for  it,  so  the  sun  needs  an  earth  to  shine  upon. 
The  craving  for  God  in  our  human  nature  must 
have  been  put  there  by  him  who  is  at  once  its 
source  and  its  supply.  And  all  this  proves,  at 
least,  \.h.Q  possibility  of  prayer.  Not  now  to  urge 
more  than  this,  it  must  be  granted  that  there  is 
room  for  the  belief.  It  is  clearly  in  the  range  of 
possible  things  that  the  two  beings  should  inter- 
change thought  and  care,  man  bringing  his  word 
of  prayer,  and  God  his  word  of  revelation.  There 
is  enough  in  these  indications  to  induce  hope 
that  it  may  be  so.  The  idea  of  God,  and  of  such 
a  God,  is  strong  in  some  minds  in  this  way  of 
complementary  supply  for  a  craving  that  can  find 
no  other  satisfaction. 

These  various  ways  of  seizing  with  the  logical 
reason  on  this  idea  of  God  are  by  no  means  mu- 
tually exclusive  of  each  other;  and  they  are  so 
far  from  contradictory  that  they  are  the  rather 
helpful.  Their  trend  is  in  one  direction.  And  it 
is  to  be  expected  that  this  universal  idea  of  God 
will  pervade  all  our  faculties,  and  the  whole  na- 
ture of  man  be  hospitable  thereto.  ^  All  these 
various  ways  of  looking  are  in  one  direction.  A 
man  may  stand  at  the  foot  of  the  Bunker  Hill 


THE    POSSIBILITY   OF   PRAYER.  21 

Monument,  and  look  up  its  slant  sides,  putting  by 
turns  his  eye  to  each.  He  seems  to  touch  the  sky 
with  his  vision.  He  does  not  actually  do  that. 
But  the  sky  is  that  zvay.  He  is  looking  in  that 
direction.  He  knows  that  somewhere,  far  above 
the  monument,  those  lines  in  his  eye  reach  an 
apex,  and  that  any  one  of  them,  continued  on, 
would  strike  the  sky.  To  many  minds,  and  they 
are  among  our  surest  mental  workers,  there  are 
no  such  strong  proofs,  in  any  matter,  as  are  these 
of  trend,  and  direction,  and  convergence.  The 
fact  that  various  minds  approach  the  idea  from  so 
many  positions  is  reassuring.  Such  men  feel  that 
they  are  treading,  when  they  go  over  all  these 
various  arguments,  along  the  lines  of  the  grand- 
est thought,  and  are  walking  safely.  The  best 
thinking  must  be  ever  ''  thinking  over  again  the 
thoughts  of  God."  These  souls,  in  the  complete- 
ness of  their  ov/n  satisfaction  with  the  argument, 
might  not  be  content  with  claiming  a  mere  infer- 
ence as  to  \h.Q  possibility  of  prayer.  They  would 
insist  upon  a  stronger  inference.  But  let  us  be 
modest  in  our  claim  at  this  point  of  the  discus- 
sion. Let  us  claim  only  that  even  the  sceptic 
must  allow  that  there  is  a  mighty  trend  toward 
the  belief  that  it  is  possible  for  God  to  hear  and 
answer  prayer. 


22    PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 


CHAPTER   11. 

THE    PROBABILITY   OF   PRAYER. 

We  hav^e  seen  which  way  lie  the  possibilities 
on  this  question  of  answered  prayer. 

It  is  now  to  be  urged  that  the  immense  proba- 
bilities run  in  the  same  direction.  The  argument 
has  been  along  the  line  of  the  actual  existence  of 
the  two  beings  involved  in  this  exercise  of  prayer. 
God  and  man  have  been  seen  as  related,  since 
they  are  working,  intellectually,  on  the  same 
*'  plane  of  the  true  and  the  false,"  and  are  using 
similar  though  unequal  powers,  by  which  they 
can  seek  a  common  result. 

But  these  two  beings  are  also  workers  on  an- 
other plane — that  of  the  spiritual  life. 

It  is  to  be  noticed  that  both  God  and  man  are 
supernatural  factors  in  securing  results;  and  so 
they  are  both,  by  virtue  of  their  rank  of  being, 
capable  of  working  over  and  above,  as  well  as  in 
and  through,  those  things  which  we  call  "  nat- 
ural." For  free  actors  have  a  certain  power  of 
personal  force.  They  are  capable  of  initiating 
action    where   it    did    not    exist    before.     They 


THE   TROBABILITY   OF   TRAYER.  23 

originate.  They  put  into  exercise  a  new  force. 
They  thrust  in  a  new  energy,  which  is  outside  of 
"nature"  and  in  addition  thereto;  it  is  the  self- 
originating  force  of  will.  It  is  sometimes  con-* 
ceived  of  less  as  the  exercise  of  a  single  faculty, 
and  more  as  an  act  of  the  mind  itself,  using  itself 
executively.  And  this  kind  of  force  is  entirely 
unlike  those  powers  with  which  physical  objects 
are  supposed  to  be  equipped.  In  man,  physical 
brain-force  and  mental  will-power  are  parallel 
facts,  and  for  that  very  reason  are  not  identical. 
They  exist  together,  and  one  is  as  is  the  other; 
and  therefore  the  one  is  not  the  other.  Says 
Tyndall,  "  We  can  trace  the  development  of  a 
nervous  system  (in  man),  and  can  correlate  it 
with  the  parallel  phenomena  of  sentient  thought. 
Parallelism  without  contact  is  implied;  but  there 
is  no  fusion  possible  between  the  two  classes  of 
facts."  So  elsewhere  Tyndall  says,  "  Thought  and 
sentiment  are  accompanied  doubtless  by  move- 
ments in  the  molecules  of  the  brain,  but  the  mode 
of  connection  betw^een  the  tw^o  is  simply  to  us 
unthinkable.  The  connection  between  mind  and 
matter  is  not  necessary  but  empirical."  In  some 
way,  we  know  not  and  need  not  to  know  how,  this 
will-power  touches  the  physical  in  man's  body, 
and  the  touch  proves  them  utterly  unlike.  Body 
and  mind  have  not  a  quality  in  common.    In  the 


24  PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

physical  realm  there  is  the  "  natura,"  and  in  the 
spiritual  realm  there  is  the  '^  super-natura;  "  the 
two,  in  the  case  of  man,  are  singularly  conjoined, 
and  as  singularly  separated.  There  is  just  enough 
of  resemblance  and  relation  between  the  facts 
and  forces  of  the  physical  world  and  those  of  the 
spiritual  world  to  warrant  very  careful  and  dis- 
criminating analogy.  To  confound  the  facts  or 
law^s  of  the  two  is  to  destroy  both  realms  for  us 
as  objects  of  thought  and  inquiry.  If  Prof.  Drum- 
mond,  in  his  popular  work,  **  Natural  Law  in  the 
Spiritual  World,"  is  held  to  have  proved  the  laws 
of  the  two  realms  to  be  analogous  rather  than 
identical,  he  will  have  done  service  to  science  by 
rendering  it  more  intelligible  to  thousands  of 
plain  readers,  and  none  the  less  service  to  religion 
by  sho\ving  that  its  facts  have  both  parallel  and 
illustration  in  the  physical  world. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  God,  one  of  these  free 
and  supernatural  factors,  could  have  so  arranged 
the  original  scheme  of  things  as  to  provide  for 
hearing  and  answering  prayer.  The  contrary  can 
be  maintained  only  on  some  theory  that  denies 
the  divine  sovereignty.  It  has  been  alleged  that 
existing  arrangements  show  no  place  open  for 
such  things  as  answers  to  prayer.  But  does  any 
man  know^  all  the  existing  arrangements  ?  To  as- 
sume that  God  could  not,  because  he  has  not,  so 


41 


THE  PROBABILITY  OF  PRAYER.       25 

far  as  some  men  can  see,  arranged  for  answered 
prayer,  is  not  only  poor  logic,  but  it  is  the  as- 
sumption of  omniscience.  For  if  there  be  one 
fact  or  force  unknown,  one  arrangement  not  un- 
derstood, one  purpose  of  God  not  disclosed  to 
this  objector,  then  the  one  undiscovered  force, 
the  one  unrevealed  purpose,  may  be  the  very 
thing  needed  to  answer  all  objections,  and  to  show 
God  abundantly  able  and  willing  to  do  this  thing. 
It  is  hard  to  believe  that  a  free  being  would  have 
so  imprisoned  himself  in  his  own  universe  that  he 
should  not  be  able  to  listen  to  the  great  cry  that 
in  all  ages  would  come  up  into  his  ears  from  man, 
the  creature  made  in  his  own  image.  Able  to 
make  the  arrangement  through  his  original  plan 
of  nature,  in  the  absence  of  any  conflicting  rea- 
sons, is  it  not  probable  that,  as  our  loving  God, 
he  would  have  so  ordered  facts  and  forces  that 
room  would  be  secured  for  the  answer  of  prayer  ? 
And  the  probability  increases  when  we  con- 
sider the  peculiar  duality  and  yet  unity  of  the 
known  and  visible  universe  which  God  has  made. 
For  the  actual  universe,  so  far  as  we  can  under- 
stand it,  presents  itself  as  having  both  a  spiritual 
and  a  physical  world,  and  the  one  the  counter- 
part of  the  other.  Thought  is  greater  than  thing, 
but  thing  is  conformed  to  thought.  Long  ago/ 
Herschel  pointed  out  the  fact  that  the  atoms  of 


26    PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

which  the  visible  universe  is  composed  have  on 
them  the  stamp  of  being  manufactured  articles; 
that  the  unseen  is  indicated  by  the  seen  and  dom- 
inated.thereby  in  purpose  ;  that  the  natural  world 
must  have  a  beginning  in  time  and  would  have 
an  ending ;  and  that,  when  it  ends,  it  will  leave 
behind  it  that  unseen  world  whence  came  its  idea 
and  existence,  and  to  the  more  central  facts  of 
which  it  is  conformed,  as  vesture  to  the  body  it 
clothes.  The  natural  is  the  illuminated  dial  plate, 
all  the  figures  of  which  are  visible  to  us  only  be- 
cause of  the  light  behind  it.  So  that  the  natural 
and  the  spiritual  worlds  are  to  be  conceived  of  as 
constituting,  when  taken  together,  the  one  uni- 
verse of  God.  If  the  physical  part  of  it  be  re- 
garded as  placed  under  the  fixed  law  of  the  nec- 
essary, the  other  part  is  to  be  deemed  under  the 
correlated  law  of  the  personal  and  the  free.  The 
material  world  has  its  objects  with  such  qualities 
as  hardness  and  softness,  color  and  weight.  But 
none  the  less  has  the  spiritual  world  its  objects, 
having  qualities  such  as  memory  and  will,  love 
and  hate.  It  is  the  realm  where  "  the  law  of  the 
right  and  the  wrong  "  is  just  as  really  a  law  as  is 
gravity  in  the  physical  world.  This  spiritual 
world  has  its  facts  of  God  and  the  soul,  of  con- 
science and  commandment,  of  obedience  and  dis- 
obedience, of   probation  and    immortality.     We 


THE  PROBABILITY  OF  PRAYER.       2/ 

do  not  make  the  physical  world  with  its  objects 
and  forces  and  laws.  We  are  born  into  it  in 
body.  It  was  here  before  we  came.  We  simply 
accept  it  as  an  arrangement  of  God  appointed  for 
our  physical  position.  We  take  it  as  ready-made 
to  our  hand,  and  do  our  work  amid  these  facts 
and  forces  which  we  find  adapted  to  our  mortal 
life.  In  the  same  way  we  are  born  into  the  men- 
tal realm.  It  is  the  realm  of  the  knowable.  It 
has  its  facts  and  laws.  Its  great  law,  fundamental 
as  is  gravity  in  the  physical  realm,  is  *'  the  law  of 
the  true  and  the  false."  We  do  not  make  a  thing 
true  or  false.  It  is  so,  outside  of  ourselves  or  our 
decisions.  We  simply  recognize  it  as  such,  and 
act  upon  it.  We  do  not  make  the  standard  by 
which  we  judge  things.  We  find  this  law  of  the 
true  and  the  false  in  the  world  when  we  come ; 
we  find  it  used  by  men,  and  we  accept  it.  It  is 
a  system^  of  things  that  we  did  not  originate,  but 
into  the  midst  of  which  we  are  thrust  to  do  our 
mental  work  in  life.  Exactly  as  it  is  with  the 
physical  and  mental  realms,  so  is  it  with  the  moral 
realm.  We  are  thrust  into  the  midst  of  its  facts; 
and  they  are  as  real  as  are  those  of  the  physical 
or  the  intellectual  world.  It  has  its  own  objects, 
its  own  forces,  and  its  own  laws.  It  is  the  realm 
where  reigns  "  the  law  of  the  right  and  the  wrong,'* 
exactly  as  in  the  intellectual  sphere  we  have  "  the 


28  PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY    AND   A   FACT. 

law  of  the  true  and  the  false."  No  man  makes 
anything  right  or  wrong.  It  is  so  in  itself.  It 
was  so  before  we  came,  and  would  be  so  if  we 
were  out  of  the  system.  It  is  the  world  where, 
by  virtue  of  our  moral  equipment  of  faculties,  we 
do  our  work,  exactly  as  by  our  physical  equip- 
ment of  hand  and  foot  and  eye  and  ear  we  do 
our  physical  work.  Physical  material  is,  in  our 
physical  world,  just  what  moral  material  is  in  our 
spiritual  world.  Physical  facts  are  our  environ- 
ment in  body,  as  spiritual  facts  are  the  furnish- 
ing for  our  spiritual  life.  They  are  not  it.  It 
demands  them.  Intellectual  truth  for  the  sen- 
tient mind,  and  moral  truth  for  the  conscious 
soul,  are  the  requirements  of  faculty,  just  as  is 
light  for  the  eye  and  an  objective  world  for  the 
sense  of  touch. 

As  to  the  rank  of  these  three  realms,  the  phy- 
sical world,  the  intellectual  world,  and  the  moral 
world — it  is  to  be  noticed  that  the  latter  has 
some  deliverance  to  offer  upon  each  of  the  other 
realms  besides  its  own.  The  final  ends  of  God 
are  moral  ends;  and  God  and  man  both  have  it 
to  use  the  physical  and  the  mental  so  as  to  secure 
moral  results.  Prayer  in  its  askings  and  answer- 
ings  will  have  to  do  mainly  with  the  moral  realm  ; 
for  the  soul's  duties  and  trials,  its  perplexities  and 
weaknesses,  its  sins  and  its  sorrows,  its  struggle 


THE   PROBABILITY   OF   PRAYER.  29 

and  its  salvation,  are  the  main  things  about  which 
prayer  is  concerned.  And  yet  the  physical  often 
bears  so  closely  on  the  moral  that  we  ask  for 
material  things  as  they  are  related  to  our  spiritual 
life. 

Dr.  Bushnell,  after  urging  that  matter  is  not  a 
two-faced  something,  one  face  of  which  is  physi- 
cal and  the  other  spiritual,  insists  that  "  GodlTas 
in  fact  erected  another  and  higher  system— that 
of  spiritual  government — for  which  nature  exists." 
But  as  the  two  worlds  are  related,  and  prayer 
may  have  to  do  with  them  both,  the  answer  may 
come  in  the  related  realm  rather  than  that  con- 
cerning which  we  specifically  ask.  But  by  far 
the  larger  number  of  requests  will  be  within  the 
spiritual  sphere  of  things.  Our  prayer-tests  will 
be  mainly  in  the  moral  realm,  where  lie  our  largest 
needs,  and  to  which  come  the  promises  that  are 
of  grandest  scope.  In  this  moral  realm,  it  is  soul 
meeting  soul,  the  essential  man  meeting  the  One 
in  whom  his  largest  desires  find  their  satisfaction. 
Both  act  under  the  law  of  sympathetic  touch; 
and  the  prayer  would  seem  to  be  not  more  natural 
than  the  answer.  It  is  heart  drawn  to  heart.  It  is 
a  moral  act  in  which  two  spiritual  beings,  in  moral 
agreement,  and  acting  on  the  same  moral  plane, 
speak  to  each  other  of  their  moral  work.  What 
more  natural  than  that  the  one  should  ask,  and 


30  PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

the  other  give,  counsel ;  that  the  weaker  in  right 
should  seek  help  of  the  stronger;  that  recognition 
should  pass  into  communion  of  thought  and  feel- 
ing, in  those  who,  however  far  apart  in  position, 
are  seeking  a  common  moral  end  ?  Is  there  any- 
thing improbable  in  such  an  exercise  ?  Surely 
there  should  be  an  arrangement  by  which,  at  least 
occasionally,  and  in  the  great  crises  of  a  man's 
life,  this  thing  might  be  done.  We  can  certainly 
maintain  it  as  a  very  strong  probability  that  it 
is  done.  It  is  more  than  likely  that  somewhere 
and  somehow,  at  least  in  the  interspaces  of  event 
and  law,  if  in  no  other  way,  God  has  left  himself 
room  for  answer  to  the  petitions  of  those  so  evi- 
dently made  in  his  own  image.  What  if,  by-and- 
by,  further  on  in  the  argument,  we  shall  find  that 
God  is  shut  up  to  no  such  narrow  limits  as  some 
might  think;  that  there  is  no  reason  to  ask  how, 
under  and  between  physical  laws,  there  can  be 
crevice  and  loophole,  so  that  God  can  find  place 
to  send  answer  to  human  petition  ;  but  that,  alike 
by  abundant  arrangement,  both  in  the  physical 
and  spiritual  realms,  and  by  his  own  ever-present 
personality,  he  is  able,  from  the  depths  of  his  be- 
ing, to  sound  the  depths  of  our  souls,  when  he  has 
encouraged  and  inspired  the  prayer  he  proposes 
to  answer? 

Or  yet  again :  this  question  of  the  probability 


THE   PROBABILITY   OF   PRAYER.  3 1 

of  answered  petition  can  be  approached  from  the 
physical  side.  We  can  begin  at  tlie  other  end  of 
the  Hne  and  come  in  toward  the  centre.  It  adds 
to  the  force  of  the  argument  to  recall  the  con- 
ceded physical  fact  that  even  the  words  spoken 
by  man,  in  oath  as  well  as  in  prayer,  make  for 
themselves  an  imperishable  record.  Prayer  is 
thus  a  part  of  the  ever-written  literature  of  the 
universe,  remaining  visible  for  the  inspection  of 
God  and  for  the  review  of  other  moral  beings 
with  finer  perceptions — perhaps  for  the  continu- 
ous reading  of  man  himself  in  superior  states  of 
development.  Says  another,  "  The  air  is  one  vast 
library,  on  whose  pages  are  forever  written  all 
that  man  has  ever  said,  or  woman  ever  whispered." 
"  The  earth  and  the  sea  give  up  their  dead  "  in 
ways  beyond  those  in  which  our  interpretation 
^;  may  have  understood  the  words.  What  we  have 
written  we  have  written.  And  the  voice  of  prayer 
can  be  no  exception,  for  even  its  words  are  not 
lost.  Addressed,  prayer  goes  to  its  destination.. 
The  petition  of  the  devout  heart  has  clothed  it- 
self in  words;  those  words  take  their  place  among 
the  facts  that  cannot  be  changed  or  lost.  The 
universe  is  like  one  of  those  old-time  palimpsests, 
or  manuscripts  covered  over  with  successive  lay- 
ers of  writing,  which  now,  by  our  modern  skill, 
are  taken  off  separately  and  read  out  in  the  au- 


32    PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

dience  of  the  world,  and  whosoever  cares  may 
listen.  There  is  an  instrument  into  which  you 
may  speak,  and,  instantly,  on  a  cylinder,  not  only 
your  words,  but  your  tones,  your  stress  and  ac- 
centuation, are  all  preserved,  and  the  cylinder 
will  give  it  all  back  again  with  absolute  fidelity 
and  startling  distinctness;  and  that  not  once  or 
twice,  but  an  unknown  number  of  times.  The 
universe  may  be  considered  as  one  vast  and  in- 
destructible graphophone,  which  records  all  that 
man  has  ever  said,  and  returns  all  the  utterances 
he  has  ever  made,  even  the  most  secret  prayer 
that  has  ever  left  his  lips  in  the  chamber  of  his  de- 
votion.    To  ask  is  to  answer  the  poet's  question : 

"  Do  the  elements  subtle  reflection  give? 
Do  pictures  of  all  ages  live 
On  nature's  infinite  negative  ?  " 

In  a  universe  with  a  recording  system  so  per- 
fect, a  telegraphic  system  so  carefully  arranged 
and  reaching  so  far  with  every  word  entrusted  to 
its  care,  can  a  single  sentence  of  human  suppli- 
cation get  out  of  the  range  of  God's  eye  or  ear? 
Can  he  be  the  kind  of  a  being  who  is  not  likely  to 
listen  kindly  and  answer  fully  the  petition  which  is 
a  perpetual  fact  ?  It  rises  from  an  earnest  soul,  it 
bursts  the  bounds  of  the  lips  and  breaks  into  a 
vocal  prayer,  which  thenceforth  becomes  an  im- 
perishable fact  in  the  universe  of  God.     It  must 


THE   PROBABILITY   OF   PRAYER.  33 

be  SO,  or  prayer  is  the  great  exception.  If  united 
to  the  words  there  is  also  the  glowing  thought,  so 
that  the  soul  as  well  as  the  body  of  the  prayer 
is  to  come  up  and  stand  before  God,  and  if  he  is 
then  to  shut  his  ear,  surely  that  separate  and  un- 
related fact  should  be  shown.  Then,  and  only 
then,  will  we  admit,  however  reluctantly,  that 
though  the  trend  of  all  things  else  is  toward  the 
belief  in  answered  prayer,  yet  for  some  good 
reason  deeply  hid  in  the  heart  of  God,  he  does 
not  listen  and  will  not  respond  to  our  cry.  But 
we  are  not  forced  to  any  such  painful  conclusion. 
There  is  no  proof  that  prayer  is  the  sad  excep- 
tion. It  cannot  be  that  while  an  oath  is  recorded, 
a  prayer  makes  such  slight  record  as  to  be  quickly 
obliterated.  The  Omniscient  must  know  when 
we  pray.  He  will  not  vacate  his  omniscience  by 
refusing  to  regard  any  such  fact  as  prayer.  God 
\  cannot,  being  God,  but  hear,  even  if  he  did  not 
^  wish  to  listen.  He  is  in  the  room  where  you  pray. 
He  could  not  possibly  be  absent.  He  holds  up 
the  earth  beneath  you.  Each  object  in  the  room, 
the  floor  on  which  you  kneel,  the  chair,  table,  or 
bed  against  which  your  hand  rests,  are  all  kept 
in  existence  and  in  form  by  him.  ''  By  him  all 
things  consist;"  i.  e.,  stand  as  they  stand.  It  is 
his  present  energy,  there  and  then  exercised, 
that  keeps  all  things  in  being  and  works  all  laws. 
3 


34  PRAYER   AS   A  THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

He  must  at  least  hear,  if  he  does  not  answer. 
But  the  immense  probability  is  that,  going  so  far 
as  to  hear,  he  will  take  the  one  step  more,  that  of 
choosing  to  answer  the  suppliant's  petition. 

^  Further:  such  an  arrangement  for  hearing 
would  obviously  be  a  good  arrangement.  It 
would  provide  for  God's  manifestation  of  himself 
and  for  man's  development  in  the  highest  lines 
of  religious  living.  It  certainly  would  not  be  dis- 
honorable to  God,  and  as  certainly  would  be 
helpful  to  man.  It  would  seem  to  open  a  way 
for  God  to  disclose  his  will  and  direct  our  mortal 
life,  which  would  not  be  omitted  by  one  who,  as 
a  worker  on  the  same  moral  plane,  must  care  for 
our  welfare  in  caring  for  himself  and  his  own 
plans. 

It  is  true  that  a  crude  interpretation  of  some 
few  texts  of  Scripture,  under  pretence  of  magni- 
fying prayer,  has  really  left  God  no  room  to 
answer.  Under  the  effort  to  exalt  God's  promise, 
it  has  really  discrowned  God  himself.  Good  men, 
\      pleading    that  the  words  "  whatsoever  ye  shall 

^  ask  "  are  unlimited — an  error  which  would  have 
been  avoided  by  study  of  the  context — have 
made  God  vacate  sovereignty  in  their  behalf ;  have 
not  even  left  him  the  poor  liberty  to  deny  them 
any  wish  or  whim  ;  have  regarded  him  as  yielding 
to  them,  through  his  unlimited  promise,  the  con- 


THE  PROBABILITY  OF  PRAYER.       35 

trol  of  events.  If  their  view  is  correct,  they  are 
sovereigns,  and  he  is  the  subject  who  is  to  do 
what  they  may  say  when  they  ask  anything  in 
prayer.  But  we  are  not  told  that  we  may  mount 
the  throne  in  our  **  whatsoever  ye  ask;'*  only 
that  this  is  the  liberty  we  have,  to  ask  what  we 
will  of  strength  and  direction  for  work  in  which 
we  seek  that  "  the  Father  may  be  glorified  in  the 
Son."  *  Prayer  is  not  human  whim,  but  holy  de- 
sire offered  up  for  things  according  to  the  will  of 
God.  It  is  not  a  man  imposing  his  test  on  God, 
but  God  proposing  the  line  along  which,  in  his 
promises,  we  may  prove  him.  Prayer  sees  him 
always  on  the  throne  to  grant  or  to  deny,  answer- 
ing equally  in  either  case.  It  never  discrowns 
the  God  it  addresses.  Let  no  man  think  the  less 
of  true  prayer  for  that  rashness  of  interpretation 
which,  under  color  of  honoring  prayer,  is  really 
dishonorable  to  God. 

On  the  other  hand,  could  one  imagine  any  ex- 
ercise more  adapted  to  ennoble  man  than  this  of 
true  prayer  ?  It  would  promote  that  genuine 
humility  which  consists  well  with  the  highest  ex- 
altation. It  lifts  mind  and  heart  toward  him  who 
is  the  sum  of  all  excellence.  We  imitate  whom 
we  worship.  We  grow  like  him  whom  we  adore. 
We  are  ourselves  exalted  in  exalting  him.  It 
*  See  John,  xiv.  13,  14. 


36  PRAYER  AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

stands  to  reason  that  no  man  can  be  a  worse  man, 
but  on  the  contrary  a  better  man,  for  entering 
daily  his  closet  and  praying  to  his  Father  and  his 
God.  Prayer  tends  to  make  the  relations  we  sus- 
tain to  God  more  definite.  It  is  an  act  that  is 
between  himself  and  our  central  selves.  It  is 
called  ''drawing  near  to  God."  The  sense  of  the 
Divine  Being  as  one  ever  present  may  grow  dull 
elsewhere,  but  it  becomes  sharp  again  in  the 
closet.  Prayer  vitalizes  the  best  truths.  It  re- 
fines the  ore  of  Christian  doctrine  and  leaves  be- 
hind the  true  gold.  Truth  that  can  be  prayed  is 
truth  that  is  newly  tested  and  minted.  The 
creed  that  ministers  to  true  prayer  is  thereby  the 
proven  creed.  We  see  further  into  spiritual  truth 
on  our  knees  than  when  standing  highest  on 
our  feet.  Heart  then  leads  head,  as  it  was  made 
to  do.  If  God  has  an  arrangement  for  hearing 
and  answering  prayer,  it  must  tend  to  vitalize 
all  his  best  truths  for  us.  In  this  way  he  can  get 
himself  believed  with  a  profound  and  living  faith. 
It  would  be,  if  he  has  chosen  prayer  as  a  fact  in 
his  universe,  a  sort  of  continuous  authentication 
of  revelation;  not  indeed  by  way  of  adding  new 
truths,  but  by  vivifying  those  that  are  already 
known.  For  if  prayer  and  its  answer  are  corre- 
lated facts,  they  are  also  related  facts  to  other 
things  in  the  supernatural  realm  of  God  and  souls. 


THE  TROBABILITY  OF  PRAYER.       37 

The  great  facts  of  revelation  go  well  with  this* 
exercise  of  prayer.  They  do  indeed  bear  on 
themselves  the  brand  of  miraculous  signature  and 
indorsement.  But  they  are  centuries  away  from 
us.  They  cannot  be  repeated;  since,  if  frequent, 
the  miracles  attesting  them  would  cease  to  be 
authentications.  And  they  are  in  danger,  be- 
cause of  their  infrequence,  less  of  being  denied 
than  unused  as  proofs  of  divine  utterances. 
They  and  the  truths  indorsed  by  them,  are  in 
danger  of  lying  useless  on  the  surface  of  one's  be- 
lief, the  spiritual  side  of  the  miracles  neglected, 
and  their  moral  worth  as  divine  object  lessons  not 
duly  estimated.  What  is  needed  is  some  such 
exercise  as  prayer  which  shall  put  a  man's  soul 
into  moral  mood,  so  that  the  Christian  facts  shall 
have  a  fair  chance  in  their  double  appeal  to  heart 
and  to  head ;  so  that  from  the  vantage  ground 
of  a  profound  moral  sympathy  these  facts  shall 
have  the  kind  of  reception  to  which  they  are  en- 
titled. The  separating  centuries  will  depart  and 
the  full  force  of  these  truths  not  be  weakened  by 
distance  in  time.  We  need  to  be  put  into  close 
communion  with  them.  Prayer  would  do  this 
thing  for  those  generations  of  men  which,  like 
our  own,  are  necessarily  separated  from  those 
occurrences.  Prayer  would  find  these  facts  at 
their  due  strength.     It  would  bring  them  back  in 


38    PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

their  hallowed  freshness.  In  that  case  the  Bible 
would  feed  the  flame  of  prayer,  and  prayer  give 
new  vividness  to  the  Bible.  There  would  be 
the  "threefold  cord  not  easily  broken."  There 
would  be  the  Bible  received  on  its  own  evidence; 
next,  prayer  as  a  matter  of  testimony  from  pray- 
ing men  ;  and  then  there  would  be  also  the  agree- 
ment of  the  two,  as  a  third  evidence  to  be  added 
to  the  others. 

So  that  for  his  own  glory  as  well  as  for  our 
good,  for  the  interests  of  truth  as  well  as  of 
righteousness,  God  may  be  considered  as  not 
likely  to  have  omitted  to  furnish  an  arrangement 
for  answering  human  prayer;  as  not  likely  to 
have  made  no  provision  for  what  would  be  of 
such  obvious  and  inestimable  worth  to  himself 
and  to  all  that  moral  realm  over  which  he  is  sov- 
ereign, and  the  success  of  which  he  has  charged 
himself  to  secure.  Prayer  would  seem  to  be  a  fit 
thing  to  be  included  in  his  original  scheme  of 
things,  a  holy  and  wise  fore-ordination  of  God. 

These  growing  probabilities  approach  very  near 
the  edge  of  certainty.  Starting  from  so  many 
points  in  the  circumference,  they  run  always  in 
such  a  direction  that  we  cannot  but  know  what 
IG  the  centre  of  the  circle. 


PERSONALITY   AS   A   LAW.  39 


CHAPTER    III. 

PERSONALITY   AS   A   LAW. 

It  Is  a  fine  remark  of  Stirling  that  "  a  man  is 
free  because  he  obeys  motives."  This  leaves  the 
person  behind  the  motive,  who  selects  and  acts 
upon  it,  as  the  chief  factor.  There  is  a  law  of  per- 
sonality. Individual  force  is  a  fact  and  a  power 
in  the  universe,  as  really  as  is  gravity.  Men  in- 
quire how  natural  laws  can  be  used  or  can  be  set 
aside  in  the  answering  of  prayer.  But  personality 
is  a  consideration  quite  as  important  as  physical 
law  or  material  fact.  For  a  large  part  of  human 
life  consists  in  matching  human  will  against  ma- 
terial obstacles.  We  manage  to  have  our  way, 
and  practically  to  override  physical  law  a  thou- 
sand times  a  day.  Law  would  keep  a  man's  foot 
fast  to  the  earth  where  it  is  set.  But  his  will  is 
thrust  in  as  the  new  superior  and  personal  force, 
and  he  lifts  the  foot,  accomplishing  thereby  what 
amounts  to  the  same  thing,  in  result,  as  a  suspen- 
sion of  the  law  of  gravity.  Every  voluntary  move- 
ment of  the  body  tramples  on  the  law.  We  over- 
work it.     We  combine  the  law  of  gravity  with 


40    PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

other  laws,  and  so  come  inventions  that  save  ex- 
penditure of  human  force.  The  law  is  there, 
but  we  are  its  masters,  coercing  it,  managing 
it,  combining  it,  opposing  it.  It  is  stable,  and 
therefore  we  depend  upon  it.  In  a  universe  with 
unstable  laws  the  human  will  could  do  nothing  at 
all.  Says  Prof.  Momrie  in  his  work  on  "  Person- 
ality," "  Our  life  is  spent  in  using,  adapting,  com- 
<  '  bining,  and  controlling  the  forces  of  the  material 
world.  And  all  this  we  achieve  not  in  spite  of,  but 
because  of,  the  inviolability  of  law."  If  man  can 
do  all  this,  cannot  God  do  more  ?  If  he  shall  fail 
to  do  more  in  order  to  make  room  for  answering 
prayer,  will  he  not  put  himself  down  to  a  posi- 
tion lower  than  that  taken  by  man  ?  We  must 
ourselves,  in  our  thinking,  make  room  for  God's 
personality  in  all  else;  and  why  not  then  in 
prayer  ?  The  argument  here  and  now  grounds 
itself  on  this  very  inviolability  of  nature  which 
makes  these  exercises  of  personality  manifest  in 
God  as  in  man.  "  Consciousness,"  says  Prof. 
Momr-ie,  *'  is  the  knowledge  which  we  have  of 
ourselves,  along  with  our  states^  This  last  clause 
is  a  very  happy  addition  to  the  usual  definition 
given  by  Bain,  Hamilton,  Spencer,  and  McCosh; 
and  it  answers  Mill  and  the  whole  Positivist 
school  in  a  single  member  of  a  sentence.  But 
this  consciousness  is  aware  of  its  own  essential 


PERSONALITY    AS    A    LAW.  4 1 

power.  We  know  ourselves  as  sending  out  the 
energy  of  a  personal  will.  We  know  that  this  is 
the  volition  of  a  free  being.  We  act  as  out  of 
self.  How  much  more  must  God  do  so  !  And 
hence  his  scope  of  activity  in  answering  prayer. 

But  personality  has  more  to  do  than  any  other 
one  thing  that  can  be  named  in  securing  answers 
to  requests.  You  ask  a  favor  of  a  fellow-man. 
It  is  clearly  within  his  power  to  grant  it.  The 
likelihood  of  his  granting  it  depends  almost  en- 
tirely on  his  personality — on  that  assemblage  of 
tastes  and  wishes  and  preferences  which  make  up 
his  disposition  as  a  man  ;  on  the  individual  element 
in  him ;  on  the  known  ends  he  has  in  life ;  on  the 
request  as  one  which  such  a  man  as  he  would  be 
likely  to  consider;  on  his  friendship  for  you;  on 
the  whole  sum  of  your  relations  to  him  as  he  un- 
derstands them.  And  you,  in  view  of  all  these 
personal  considerations,  form  your  judgm^ent  of 
his  probable  answer  to  your  request.  The  per- 
sonal element  controls.  And  why  is  it  not  so 
with  God,  as  the  one  to  whom  we  put  up  our 
,  prayers  ?  We  are  warranted  in  giving  very  large 
room  to  this  particular  element. 

Nor  is  personality  so  uncertain  a  thing  that 
we  cannot  count  upon  it.  So  far  from  this,  we 
estimate  personality  at  a  given  worth  every  day 
of  our  lives  in  dealing  with  others.     So  far  from 


42    PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

unreliable,  it  is  a  matter  of  exact  calculation — as 
much  so  as  any  physical  law.  For  what  we  call 
the  laws  of  material  nature  depend  for  their  cer- 
tainty solely  on  the  firm  personal  will  of  God.  He 
keeps  them  as  they  are.  If  we  can  rely  on  them, 
it  is  only  because  there  is  a  reliable  mind  back  of 
them.  But  even  freedom  has  its  law,  and  may 
be  duly  estimated.  Personality  has  its  force,  on 
which  we  can  reckon.  Individuality  has  its  mode 
of  action,  which  can  be  ascertained.  The  free 
will  works  under  its  own  law,  and  it  is  as  is  the 
mind  and  heart  of  the  actor.  Its  law  is  unlike 
that  in  the  material  world ;  but  it  is  as  capable  of 
being  ascertained  and  tabulated  as  is  gravity. 
An  infinite  mind  could  make  no  mistake  in  fore- 
casting what  a  man  or  a  whole  race  of  men  would 
do  under  given  circumstances.  And  a  finite  mind 
would  approximate  to  correctness  just  in  pro- 
portion to  its  knowledge  of  facts  and  of  men  and 
the  balance  of  its  judgment.  There  is  a  philoso- 
phy of  history ;  and  this  because  we  have  learned 
that  we  can  depend  upon  the  free  action  of  free 
agents  in  a  given  condition. 

Only  notice  very  carefully  that  this  is  not  the 
kind  of  certainty  which  comes  from  the  equal 
and  even  pressure  of  physical  law  upon  material 
atoms.  For  there  is  a  kind  of  bound  and  rebound 
in  the  free  human  will,  which,  however,  is  also 


PERSONALITY   AS   A   LAW.  43 

in  turn  a  thing  for  calculation.  So  that  we  can 
sit  down  with  the  history  of  man,  exactly  as  does 
the  scientist  with  his  materials  in  the  laboratory, 
and  we  can  compute  the  volume  and  direction  of 
united  or  contrasted  personalities.  French  char- 
acteristics being  what  they  are,  we  are  fairly  sure 
that  in  a  given  set  of  circumstances  Frenchmen 
will  do  this  or  that  thing.  Englishmen,  having 
definite  traits  of  character,  will  act  out  their 
united  personality,  and  we  reckon  definitely  on 
their  conduct.  Not  chemical  affinity  is  more  sure 
to  act  in  nature  than  these  traits  of  nationality 
to  secure  action  of  a  definite  social,  political,  or 
religious  kind.  Such  laws  of  personality  over- 
ride all  others,  and  the  disposition  of  a  people 
is  a  stronger  factor,  within  its  proper  sphere,  than 
is  that  physical  environment  of  which  naturalists 
have  so  much  to  say. 

Where  personality  has  room  to  act  there  is 
shown  the  wide  difference  between  physical  "  ne- 
cessity "  and  moral  "  certainty."  Two  remarkable  ^ 
lines  of  intervention  are  manifest  in  human  his- 
tory, both  showing  the  superiority  of  rank  in  the 
moral  sphere.  One  is  the  rise  and  sweep  of 
forces,  social,  political,  and  religious,  across  the 
sea  of  human  thought  and  feeling;  the  other  is 
the  rise  of  single  personalities  here  and  there 
which  sway  men  almost  regally — a  single  great 


44    PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

soul  affecting  profoundly  millions  of  other  souls. 
Of  the  former  class  are  those  great  tidal  waves 
of  feeling  that  roll  over  the  moral  ocean  and  dash 
themselves  against  every  shore.  There  have  been 
the  uprisings  of  a  great  people  in  favor  of  free- 
dom;  the  singular  incitement  to  better  forms  of 
public  manners  and  morals ;  the  sudden  revivals  of 
temperance,  of  thrift,  of  prudential  saving,  of  com- 
mercial enterprise,  and  of  spiritual  religion.  And 
these  great  movements  in  human  thought  have 
shown  the  difference  between  steady  mechanical 
law  and  that  spiritual  force  which  is  generated  in 
the  higher  sphere.  The  Infinite  Mind  can  rouse 
these  tides  on  this  wide  sea  and  direct  their 
movement,  or  can  calm  these  surges  at  will. 
Personality  in  God  can  act  through  these  moral 
forces  that  so  sway  nations;  and,  inciting  a  peo- 
ple to  pray,  he  can  so  guide  these  consenting  per- 
sonalities that  not  only  great  masses  of  men,  but 
the  most  retired  human  souls,  shall  be  prepared 
for  auspicious  answers.  Prayer  may  thus  be 
God's  breath  alike  in  petition  and  response;  and 
God's  sway  of  these  mighty  forces  will  sometimes 
seem  to  men  so  unlike  those  he  uses  in  the  m.a- 
terial  world,  that  thinking  men  shall  feel  more 
certain  of  an  answer  to  prayer  than  if  it  came 
only  through  the  working  of  physical  law. 

And  the   appearance   here   and   there  on  the 


PERSONALITY  AS   A   LAW.  45 

wide  theatre  of  human  events  of  some  grpat  soul 
whose  personality  sways  other  personalities,  yet 
without  destroying  at  all  their  individual  freedom, 
is  another  of  those  striking  facts  which  show  how 
unlike  are  the  physical  and  the  moral  realms. 
They  indicate  the  whole  wide  world  of  influences 
amid  which  God  also,  by  his  will,  can  work  with- 
out hindrance  from  material  law.  They  give  us 
a  glimpse  of  the  wide  scope  in  which  the  Divine 
Personality  can  accomplish  desired  results.  They 
show  how,  his  hand  on  all  things,  he  can  make  a 
way  for  the  answer  of  prayer.  If  man  can  do  so 
much  in  securing  moral  results,  what  cannot  God 
accomplish  amid  these  free  agents,  who,  doing 
their  own  will,  are  often  unconsciously  bringing 
about  his  purposes  ?  The  rise  of  such  a  man  as 
Cyrus,  whose  career  is  the  standing  marvel  of  his- 
tory; of  Alexander,  whose  sword  was  a  plough- 
share, turning  the  world-furrow  into  which  there 
dropped  the  swiftly  springing  seeds  of  Greek 
thought;  of  Napoleon  in  these  later  years,  the 
man  whose  conquests  and  whose  code  changed 
the  map  of  Europe  and  the  jurisprudence  of  its 
nations — these  are  instances  of  the  prodigious 
force  of  personality.  Nor  are  all  the  stars  that 
dot  this  firmament  of  disastrous  portent.  There 
are  those  of  happy  omen  and  blessed  light. 
Think  of  that  greatest  man  of  the  olden  time— 


4.6         PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

a  praying  soul  was  his — that  Moses,  who  stamped 
his  image  and  superscription  upon  his  people  so 
deeply  that  though  they  are  without  a  king  or  a 
capital,  wandering  evermore  in  the  wilderness  of 
the  world,  they  remain  a  nation  separated  from  all 
others.  The  birth-mark  of  the  Hebrew  Moses  is 
ineffaceable.  But  if  this  man  was  the  select  soul, 
more  potent  in  influence  than  any  other  in  the 
olden  centuries,  who  can  be  named  to  match  him 
in  the  Christian  era  for  moral  impression  and 
leadership  ?  There  is  one  man,  just  within  the 
\l  boundary  lines  of  the  new  dispensation.  He  too 
is  a  praying  man.  The  great  apostle  has  so 
shaped  the  thought  and  action  of  men  that  some 
have  been  tempted  to  call  our  religion  less  that 
of  Jesus  and  more  that  of  Paul.  If  Moses  was 
the  great  legislator  whose  system  of  jurisprudence 
rules,  in  its  essential  principles,  the  civilized  world 
to-day,  none  the  less  must  we  claim  for  Paul  that 
he  set  his  mark  through  his  Epistles  so  distinctly 
on  the  Christian  world  that  the  creeds  of  Chris- 
tendom can  ask  nothing  higher  than  to  be  called 
**  Pauhne "  in  theology.  But  this  man  Paul 
claimed  in  turn  for  himself  that  he  was  simply 
an  apostle  of  the  risen  Son  of  God,  Each  of 
these  men,  Moses  and  Paul,  had  it  for  a  charac- 
teristic that  he  was  a  praying  man.  The  great 
lawgiver  fell   on   his  face  before    God,   and   the 


^ 


PERSONALITY   AS   A    LAW.  47 

apostle  bows  his  knee  to  the  Father  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ.  And  so  these  two  men,  not  only 
by  genius  of  a  higher  order,  but  by  devotion  rapt 
and  intelligent,  became  the  two  most  influential 
men  who  have  ever  trod  the  planet.  Now  comes 
the  simple  question :  Can  mien  sway  souls  like 
this,  and  is  God  excepted  from  doing  as  much  as 
they  ?  Can  they  do  masterful  deeds,  sway  men 
who  are  still  free  agents  so  amazingly,  and  is 
God  to  act  less  royally  ?  They  heard  the  words 
of  human  call  and  answered  in  potent  language; 
and  shall  not  God  hear  the  cry  of  men,  and  sway 
the  race  in  reply  thereto  ?  Of  all  personalities, 
that  of  God  must  be  most  pronounced.  Paul  uses 
a  word  which  has  in  it  the  divine  personality.  It 
is  the  word  *'  grace."  It  means  that  profound 
kindness  which  is  in  the  heart  of  God  toward  men, 
and  is  exhibited  in  the  gift  and  gospel  of  his  Son 
Jesus  Christ.  God's  "grace"  is  the  beating 
heart,  the  overflow  of  the  divine  yearning  for 
man's  welfare.  It  is  his  peculiar  personality  in 
its  exercise  toward  the  human  race.  Human 
love  can  conquer  vast  obstacles.  It  is  wonderful 
in  its  working.  But  *'  God  so  loved  the  world 
that  he  gave  his  only-begotten  Son."  "  Don't 
you  think  it  was  wonderful  that  God  so  loved  us?  " 
said  one  in  the  presence  of  a  little  child.  "  I 
think  it  was  just  like  him,"    replied  the  little  the- 


48  PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

ologian.  God  is  indeed  Ruler,  and  he  will  be  our 
final  Judge.  The  judicial  element  in  every  man 
is  a  part  of  his  moral  personality.  It  must  exist 
also  in  God.  But  he  is  the  merciful  and  forbear- 
ing Ruler  and  Judge.  By  his  deepest  nature  he 
is  loath  to  condemn.  By  disposition  he  is  in- 
clined to  mercy.  He  delights  in  love.  Even  a 
kindly  judge  will  speak  out  in  answer  to  an  ap- 
pealing word;  and  though  sometimes  he  must 
decline  to  answer  favorably  a  request,  he  will  at 
least  answer.  A  kindly  father  will  not  pass  by 
the  cry  of  his  child  in  silence.  I  argue  prayer 
from  the  heart  of  God;  from  the  deepest  thing 
in  the  disposition  of  God  ;  from  all  the  revelations 
of  the  personality  of  God ;  from  the  liberty  and 
the  love  of  God. 

If  it  were  worth  while  to  press  the  argument 
from  probability  further,  there  might  be  named 
the  law  of  sympathetic  environment.  Souls  very 
far  apart  in  volumxC  may  yet  be  like-minded.  The 
same  atmosphere  may  be  vital  to  each.  The  na- 
tive Christian  air  is  one  in  which  desires  soar,  as 
birds  with  wings.  The  life  in  the  lung  draws  the 
vital  air,  and  then  in  turn  is  vitalized  thereby. 
The  soul's  humble  breathings  of  desire  find  an 
ear  that  hears  them,  since  they  gratify  its  own 
longings.  The  asking  soul  and  the  answering 
Lord  are  both  in  the  same  kingdom — the  one  as 


PERSONALITY   AS   A   LAW.  49 

a  subject,  the  other  as  a  sovereign.  The  kingdom 
of  God  is  a  kingdom  of  thought.  "  His  thoughts 
are  great  to  us-ward."  But  thought  seeks  its  ex- 
pression;  the  speaker  his  hearer;  the  God  his 
man;  the  man  his  God.  To  meet  environment 
is  the  craving  of  mind.  There  is  room  for  mutual  ^ 
communication  of  thought.  The  Bible  speaks  of 
"  my  thoughts  "  and  of  "  your  thoughts."  There 
is  room  for  this  moral  exchange,  for  this  touch 
of  moral  personality,  for  this  individualism  in  pe- 
tition and  in  response.  ''Ask — for  every  one 
that  asketh  receiveth,"  is  simply  the  doctrine  of 
moral  response;  or,  put  into  the  phrase  of  the 
physical  realm,  it  is  what  bound  and  rebound  are 
in  material  things.  The  one  true,  the  other  must 
be.  Man's  yearnings  lifted  God-ward  meet  the 
descending  answer  fresh  from  the  opening  heart 
of  his  God.  Such  environment  involves  moral 
exchange.  The  praying  man  and  the  responding 
God  are  seeking  a  common  moral  end.  The  king 
has  subjects.  But  these  subjects  are  "sons  of'' 
God."  Shall  the  members  of  a  united  household 
hold  no  intercourse  ?  What  if  we  agree  to  desig- 
nate that  intercourse  as  prayer  and  its  answer  ? 

A   warranted    inference    from    this    immense 
probability  of  answered  prayer  is  that  of  revela- 
tion.    Convinced  that  prayer  is  a  duty,  the  next 
thing  is   the   desire  to  be  taught   how  to  pray. 
4 


50    PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

The  Bible  and  prayer  are  twin  facts.  The  proba- 
bility of  the  one  as  the  companion  of  the  other 
is  very  great.  The  reasonableness  of  prayer,  and, 
equally,  the  reasonableness  of  a  divine  revelation, 
are  felt  by  millions  of  the  race.  It  is  plain  that 
the  religion  that  can  hold  the  world  in  all.coming 
centuries  must  be  the  religion  of  authentic  docu- 
ments. It  must  be  a  book  of  former  revelations, 
an  Old  Testament.  But  an  Old  Testament  de- 
mands a  New  Testament.  It  must  be  a  book  of 
man's  making,  along  the  line  of  human  literature, 
and  yet  on  it,  for  authority,  there  must  be  set 
the  seal  of  God's  inspiration.  Such  a  book  goes 
well  with  the  idea  of  prayer.  And  when  such  a 
book  throws  wide  its  pages,  we  find  not  only  di- 
rect promises  and  specific  examples,  but  the 
whole  tone  of  the  book,  the  key-note,  to  which 
all  its  song  is  pitched,  is  that  of  prayer  offered  and 
answer  given.  Its  very  praises  are  prayers ;  its 
epistles  are  interrupted  with  outburst  and  over- 
flow of  prayer;  so  that  the  Bible  is  the  prayer- 
book  of  the  world. 


SIN   AS   A   FACTOR   IN   PRAYER.  5 1 


CHAPTER   IV. 

SIN   AS   A  FACTOR   IN   THE  QUESTION  OF  PRAYER. 

So  far  we  have  considered  man  as  man  in  his 
ethical  nature.  He  craves  God  normally,  as  God 
him. 

But  there  mu^t  come  now  into  the  discussion 
a  new  element — that  of  human  sin  ;  and  we  must 
inquire  how  this  new  factor  affects  the  question 
of  prayer  as  offered  and  as  answered.  Will  sin 
shut  God's  ear?  On  the  other  side,  will  sin  hin- 
der man's  prayer  ? 

We  must~remember  that  our  ethical  nature  re- 
m^ains,  even  though  subjected  now  to  a  sinning 
heart.  It  is  as  when  some  royal  personage  has 
been  seized  upon  and  thrust  down  into  a  dun- 
geon, under  the  very  palace  in  the  throne-room 
of  which  he  once  reigned.  Sin  is  the  usurping 
servant  who  abides  not  by  any  right  in  the  palace 
built  for  the  Son.*  The  glory  of  the  ethical  na- 
ture may  be  obscured,  but  never  be  destroyed, 
by  the  wrong  voluntary  nature.  For  the  ethical 
nature,  the  nature  that  is  shown  in  the  possession 

*  John,  viii.  35. 


52  PRAYER  AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

of  conscience  and  right  reason,  is  an  imperishable 
part  of  ourselves.  Its  yearnings  may  be  for  a 
time,  but  only  for  a  time,  suppressed.  They  will 
find  their  utterance.  The  cry  of  the  royal  pris- 
oner is  sometimes  heard.  It  comes  up  into  the 
court  of  the  usurper,  and  the  guilty  soul  must 
listen.  The  man  in  us  is  sometimes  heard  above 
the  sinner. 

So,  too,  God's  yearnings  may  be  held  in  check, 
for  a  time,  in  view  of  human  sin.  As  it  throws 
the  soul  out  of  a  holy  sympathy  with  God,  so  it 
puts  God  just  as  far  out  of  sympathy  with  the 
unholy  man.  And  yet  the  yearning  is  deathless; 
for  it  is  the  outcome  of  his  eternal  nature.  From 
this  impulse  springs  the  purpose  to  rescue  the 
soul  from  the  dominion  of  sin.  The  cry  of  the 
prisoner  and  the  craving  of  God  look  alike  for 
some  way  of  deliverance.  Very  true,  if  we  keep 
in  mind  only  the  one  fact  that  sin  offends  God, 
we  shall  not  see  either  how  man  can  pray  or  God 
hear  him.  That  fact  only  in  mind,  God  ought 
not  to  hear  the  prayer.  Prayer  will  the  rather 
be  the  rod  that,  rising  above  all  else,  draws  down 
the  lightnings  of  avenging  displeasure.  Indeed, 
it  is  the  constant  insistence  of  the  Bible  that  God 
will  not  hear  the  sinner's  prayer  while  he  lives  in 
sin.  And  equally  true  is  it  that  hiding  from  God, 
as  the  Bible  represents  Adam  as  doing,  is  instinc- 


SIN  AS  A  FACTOR  IN  PRAYER.       53 

tlye.  The  man  can  no  more  pray  than  God  can 
hear.  The  promptings  of  the  ethical  are  beat 
back  by  the  whole  force  of  the  voluntary  nature, 
which  actually  and  always  rules  the  personality. 

Before  the  m.an  can  truly  pray  there  must  be 
the  advent  in  him  of  a  new  spirit.  And  on  the 
other  hand,  before  God  can  give  favorable  answer 
there  must  be  an  ethical  satisfaction  for  himself; 
a  sufficient  reason,  before  his  own  sense  of  what 
is  just  and  right,  for  his  new  attitude  toward 
this  new  suppliant.  And  equally  to  man's  ethi- 
cal nature  there  is  call  for  satisfaction.  Man 
needs  atonement  as  well  as  God.  Each  severed 
factor  needs  to  be  made  one  again,  the  two  sep- 
arated personalities  conjoined. 
■^  And  here  comes  in  on  us  the  rising  glory  of  di- 
vine intervention.  It  is  rescue  for  the  wrecked 
mariner.  The  vessel  sinks;  the  mariner  is  trans- 
ferred to  the  rescuing  bark.  The  fact  of  rescue 
by  intervention,  when  taken  into  one's  mind  and 
heart,  opens  to  the  man  a  wholly  new  kingdom — 
that  of  divine  grace  in  the  Gospel.  And  in  this 
new  Kingdom  of  God  prayer  now  comes  to  be 
vastly  other  than  it  was  in  sinless  Eden.  It  is  far 
more  than  the  natural  breathing  of  human  desire 
into  the  ear  of  God.  This  whole  kingdom  of  grace, 
grounding  itself  indeed  on  the  fact  that  prayer  is 
an  original  instinct,  and  communionj^^ith  God  an 


54  PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

old  ethical  craving,  receives  now  a  new  direction 
and  impetus;  it  has  now  a  new  atmosphere  in 
which  to  live  and  breathe  and  have  its  being.  It 
is  now  no  more  the  old  way  of  the  Eden  garden, 
but  it  is  '^  the  new  and  living  way  opened  for  us 
through  Jesus  Christ."  For  the  idea  of  human 
rescue  through  divine  redemption  has  in  it,  by 
especial  divine  ordination,  a  place  for  the  peculiar 
prayer  which  these  facts  evoke.  Prayer  is  to  do 
a  work  along  the  whole  line  of  the  new  kingdom, 
as  men  are  to  become  intercessors  on  earth  for 
others,  in  some  sense  matching  the  intercession 
that  goes  on  in  heaven.  Human  prayer  is  to  be, 
in  the  new  system,  a  grandly  honored  means  of 
grace.  It  is  called  into  a  new  position,  clothed 
with  new  power,  and  given  new  scope  in  the  new 
kingdom.  And  the  man  first  is  to  be  rescued 
himself,  and  then  through  prayer  and  those 
things  that  go  naturally  with  it  he  is  to  touch 
other  men  savingly.  And  whether  one  considers 
the  men  to  be  rescued  in  all  the  multiplicity  of 
their  interests,  or  the  whole  divine  arrangement 
for  doing  this  thing,  there  comes  out  the  fact  of 
prayer  made  more  prominent  and  its  answer 
more  assured.  Its  scope  is  grandly  broadened, 
and  its  flight  has  larger  range,  and  its  wing  is 
swifter  and  surer. 

And  in  this  new  spiritual  kingdom  are  a  whole 


SIN  AS  A  FACTOR  IN  PRAYER.       55 

series  of   facts  that   sustain   the    life   of   prayer. 
What  material  things  are  to  these  bodily  senses, 
these  things  of  God's  kingdom  are  to  the  soul. 
In  this  sacred  realm  we  have  the  Christ  of  God, 
human  and  divine ;  the  Word  of  God,  also  human 
and  divine;  the  Spirit  of  God,  the  indwelling  of 
whom   in   the  human   soul   evokes  the   spirit   of 
prayer.     The  kingdom   of   God   touches  all  our 
nature,  renewing  all  the  moral  faculties,  quicken- 
ing and  clearing  the  mental  vision,  and  even  fur- 
nishing  further  on,  for  our  bodies,  a  "resurrec- 
tion of  life."     It  is  a  kingdom  world-wide  in  its 
scope,  throwing  over  all  our  political,  social,  and 
religious  life  its  new  radiance  and  filling  all  events 
with  its  new  meanings.    Life  can  never  be  the  same 
narrow  thing,  with  its  dull  round  of  common-place, 
to  a  man  who  has  ''seen  the  kingdom  of  God." 
The  whole  great  world  of  human  interests  is  lifted 
and  _glqrified.     The  kingdom  has  place  and  use 
and  consecration  for  all  the  interests  of  art  and 
science  and  learning  and  law.     Nothing  is  there 
untouched;  and  all  it  touches  is  ennobled  there- 
by.    It  is  the  kingdom  of  kingdoms  ;  and  at  every 
point  of  its  m.ultitudinous  contact  with  human 
affairs   its    King   ordains    that    prayer   shall   be 
offered.    Its  establishment  on  earth  as  a  kingdom, 
and  every  step  toward  its  magnificent  dominion 
over  the  human  race,  are  linked  not  more  certainly 


56  PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

vAth  God's  promise  than  with  man's  prayer.  God 
and  man  are  the  factors,  and  the  answering  is  in- 
terwoven with  the  asking.  In  the  strange  and 
starthng  scheme  the  action  of  God  and  man  are 
miade  interdependent.  The  prophet  of  Israel  rep- 
resents God  as  determined  to  do  a  definite  thing, 
and  yet  it  is  added  that  he  "will  be  inquired  of" 
in  prayer  to  do  it ;  and  if  the  prayer  be  restrained, 
the  thing  will  not  be  done.  This  interweaving  of 
the  divine  and  the  human  is  the  unsolved  mys- 
tery of  God's  kingdom.  But  this  at  least  is  clear, 
that  by  the  impulse  of  their  new  nature  and  of 
the  Holy  Spirit  of  God  there  is  the  ceaseless  cry 
of  God's  redeemed  millions,  who  are  praying 
**  Thy  kingdom  come  "■ — a  prayer  from  the  range 
of  which  nothing  can  be  hidden. 

It  were  far  too  much  to  say  that  sin  as  a  fact 
in  the  world  calls  out  more  prayer  than  sinless- 
ness  would  have  done.  But  surely  the  range  of 
prayer  in  Eden  was  exceedingly  narrow.  Its 
themes  were  few.  It  might  adore,  and  within  a 
limited  range  might  ask.  It  could  bring  thanks- 
giving, but  it  could  hardly  remain  prayer  long, 
for  it  would  find  itself  engaged  in  praise.  It 
would  be  just  the  instinctive  worship  of  a  pure 
soul.  That  were  indeed  most  fit  and  beautiful. 
Who  does  not  wish  he  had  heard  an  Eden  prayer, 
had  himself  offered  the  simple  prayer  of  the  sin- 


SIN  AS  A  FACTOR  IN  PRAYER.       5/ 

less  state  ?  But  how  little  of  all  the  wide  truth 
it  must  have  had  which  now  we  are  at  liberty  to 
use  in  our  Christian  prayer.  Adam's  prayer 
could  have  had  no  high  fervor.  It  was  never  a 
man  praying  as  for  his  life.  It  had  no  confession 
of  sin,  no  plea  for  forgiveness,  no  trust  in  a  Sa- 
viour, no  cry  for  guidance  when  the  way  was 
dark,  no  struggle  for  victory  in  the  battle  with 
wrong,  no  thankfulness  for  the  intervention  of 
divine  grace,  no  intercession  for  a  world  that 
needed  rescue,  no  tears  over  a  Redeemer's  cross, 
no  sweet  asking  for  dear  ones  by  Christ's  permis- 
sion and  "  in  his  name."  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
exactly  so  far  as  our  soul  is  restored  to  God  by  the 
Holy  Spirit  we  get  back  all  the  best  things  in 
Adam's  prayer  of  innocence,  while  we  lose  noth- 
ing that  it  is  our  own  privilege  to  ask  as  disciples 
of  Christ.  There  come  hours  in  one's  Christian 
praying  when  all  the  suppressed  longings  of  years 
gain  the  freedom  of  prayer  and  the  liberty  of 
praise.  Eden  comes  back  in  its  primitive  glory, 
the  bondage  for  the  hour  is  lifted,  and  the  soul's 
native  aspirations  find  vent  In  Christian  worship. 
But  our  Christian  facts  are  larger  and  more  won- 
derful than  those  of  Eden.  Our  world,  with  the 
second  Adam,  is  a  thousand-fold  broader  in 
manifestation  of  God  than  was  that  of  Adam  In 
his    inexperienced    innocency.     The   redemptive 


58  PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

idea  in  the  soul  bursts  naturally  into  grateful  and 
adoring  prayer.  In  the  midst  of  the  grandest 
arguments  about  Christian  doctrine  in  the  apos- 
tolic Epistles  the  writer  interrupts  himself  with 
his  own  doxologies  of  mingled  praise  and  prayer. 
There  are  devotional  hours  when  the  great  Chris- 
tian facts  rise  grandly  on  the  soul. 

"  I  saw  a  vessel,  which  the  waves  did  spare, 
IJe  sadly  stranded  on  a  sandy  beach 
Beyond  the  tide's  kind  reach; 
Within  its  murmur  of  lamenting  speech 

Long  she  lay  there, 

Until  at  length 
A  mighty  sea  arose  in  all  its  strength 
And  launched  her  lovingly. 
And  thus,  alas!  our  race 
Lay  stranded  on  the  beach  of  human  sin 

And  misery, 
Beyond  all  help,  until  God's  glorious  grace — 

A  mighty  tide. 

All  crimson  dyed — 

Swept  grandly  in 

And  set  us  free."  J 

In  the  presence  of  such  facts  prayer  is  less  a 
duty  than  a  joy.  And  the  words  ''  continue  in- 
stant in  prayer  "  are  less  the  command  of  author- 
ity and  more  the  privilege  of  affection.  The 
redemptive  facts  are  always  opening  anew  to 
the  praying  man.  The  discoveries  we  make  in 
religion  are  among  its  most  delightful  experi- 
ences. They  tell  of  a  botanist  who  had  met  with 
a  rare  and  beautiful  flower,  that  he  fell  on  his 


SIN    AS   A    FACTOR   IN    PRAYER.  59 

knees,  carefully  examined  its  stalk  and  leaf  and 
blossom,  and  then  raising  his  eyes  to  heaven  he 
devoutly  thanked  God  that  he  had  so  adorned 
and  enriched  the  earth.  So  a  man  has  sometimes 
felt  in  the  presence  of  a  text  of  sacred  Scripture 
as  it  has  burst  into  blossom  before  his  delighted 
vision.  Some  verse,  like  that  in  which  Jesus  tells 
of  God's  great  love,  has  stirred  the  soul  to  its 
greatest  depths.  "  God  so  loved  the  world  that 
he  gave  his  only-begotten  Son,  that  whosoever 
believeth  on  him  should  not  perish,  but  have  eter- 
nal life."  In  view  of  such  a  text  the  whole  spir- 
itual nature  has  been  roused,  and  devout  thank- 
fulness has  found  expression  in  prayer  which  is 
as  natural  as  is  breath.  Nor  is  the  ecstasy  un- 
warranted by  facts.  A  praying  man  has  some- 
times been  obliged  to  stop  in  his  prayer,  and 
there,  on  his  knees,  assure  himself  by  argument 
that  it  was  all  really  true  that  God  gave  the  Only- 
Begotten  ;  and  when  recalling  the  certain  historic 
fact,  and  the  divine  warrant  for  prayer,  he  has 
resumed  his  petition  and  gone  on  exultingly  "  in 
His  name  "  to  the  reverent  and  tender  and  clos- 
ing "Amen." 

And  Jesus  Christ  is  not  only  the  medium 
through  whom  we  pray,  but  our  example  of 
prayer.  His  earthly  life  teaches  us  that  even  a 
perfect  human  soul  must  pray.     The  King  in  the 


6o    PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

kingdom  of  grace  bows  the  knee  and  shows  his 
followers  how  to  offer  their  hopeful  petition.  So 
that  prayer  is  for  persons  of  highest  moral  grade 
as  well  as  for  others.  It  is  the  spontaneous  act 
of  the  loftiest  type  of  manhood.  The  better  the 
man  the  stronger  the  impulse  to  pray.  Our  Lord 
is  found,  not  only  using  hours  in  communion  with 
God,  but  fortifying  himself  for  wonderful  deeds 
on  busiest  days  by  spending  whole  nights  in 
prayer.  On  him  as  a  man  came  the  Holy  Spirit. 
Even  the  associated  divinity  did  not  give  him 
the  kind  of  preparation  needed  for  his  peculiar 
mission.  He  must  be  like  his  people  in  this,  that 
he  is,  while  on  earth,  in  that  branch  of  the  king- 
dom of  God  ruled  over  by  the  Spirit,  whose  work 
is  especially  to  influence  human  souls  and  put 
them  into  the  receptive  mood  toward  the  truth 
God  has  to  reveal.  Were  we  as  pure  as  Christ 
we  should  still  need  a  peculiar  enduement  of  the 
Spirit  of  God  to  fit  us  for  our  place  in  the  spirit- 
ual kingdom.  And  this  blessing  comes  through 
prayer.  Of  our  Lord  it  is  said  that  "  as  he  prayed 
the  fashion  of  his  countenance  was  altered."  It 
was  transformation  by  beholding.  We  too  are 
changed  in  our  prayer,  *'as  by  the  Spirit  of  the 
Lord,"  so  that  we  become  anointed  and  ap- 
pointed to  offer  up  spiritual  sacrifices  acceptable 
to  God. 


SIN   AS   A   FACTOR   IN   PRAYER.  6 1 

But  out  of  the  closet,  as  well  as  in  it,  we  are  to 
pray.  Set  periods  of  devotion  are  not  inconsist- 
ent with  continuous  prayerfulness.  There  is  an 
insect  Avhich  possesses,  it  is  said,  the  power  of  sur- 
rounding itself  with  a  globule  of  air  within  which 
it  floats  unwetted  by  any  wave.  And  there  is  a 
devotional  mood  which  sometimes  abides  for 
years,  as  God's  special  gift  to  a  human  soul. 
Then  one  is,  as  it  were,  ensphered  in  the  moral 
calm,  and  undisturbed  by  any  storm  ever  known 
on  any  sea. 

Nor  protection  from  evil  only,  but  happy  im- 
pulse along  the  lines  of  Christian  activity;  for 
never  is  there  a  path  to  tread,  a  load  to  lift,  a 
work  to  do,  that  is  not  better  done  for  this  exer- 
cise of  prayer.  For  the  common  labor  and  joy 
of  life  are  connected  with  our  spiritual  career. 

"  Hast  thou  within  a  care  so  deep 
It  chases  from  thine  eyelids  sleep  ? 
To  thy  Redeemer  take  that  care,   . 
And  change  anxiety  to  prayer. 

'  ■  Hast  thou  a  hope  with  which  thy  heart 
Would  almost  feel  it  death  to  part  ? 
Entreat  thy  God  that  hope  to  crown, 
Or  give  thee  strength  to  lay  it  down." 

There  is  a  natural  relief  to  an  overburdened 
soul  in  the  act  of  prayer.  It  brings  the  burden 
and  lays  it  down  and  leaves  it.  But  God  sees  the 
act.     What  of  his  response  ?    Is  it  not  an  answer- 


62    PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT.  , 

ing  act  to  our  act  in  prayer  ?  The  answer  is 
*'  abundantly  above  what  we  ask  or  think."  God 
can  no  more  be  indifferent  than  he  can  be  igno- 
rant with  respect  to  this  prayerful  mood  of  a  hu- 
man soul.  And  as  he  has  a  whole  wide  heaven 
of  reserved  blessing,  we  may  believe  that  he  will 
not  fail  to  send  out  therefrom  to  such  a  soul 
some  token  of  his  remembrance. 

The  fact  of  human  sin  calls  for  peculiar  provi- 
dential dealing  with  man.  And  these  providential 
events  open  fresh  occasion  on  our  part  for  sup- 
plication, and  on  God's  part  for  the  answer  of  in- 
tervention. It  is  a  scheme  in  which  all  things  can 
be  made  to  work  together  for  good  to  those  that 
love  God.  Whatever  may  be  true  about  penalty 
as  necessary,  even  in  providence,  for  bad  men, 
it  is  sure  that  peculiar  overrulings  are  alike  the 
promise  and  performance  of  God  in  behalf  of  his 
people.  Calamity  has  driven  men  to  their  knees. 
Trouble  has  extorted  prayer,  and  the  new  and 
superior  use  of  sorrow,  not  seen  on  the  lower 
plane  of  even  moral  law,  is  shown  on  the  higher 
plane  of  a  gracious  gospel.  Evil  has  no  tendency 
to  righteousness,  nor  is  it  the  object  of  penalty, 
as  penalty,  to  do  other  than  inflict  deserved  sor- 
row. But  higher  than  this  natural  use  of  trouble 
is  the  overruling  by  which  the  divine  chemistry 
of  grace  is  shown.     The  trouble  brings  joy  in  the 


SIN   AS   A   FACTOR   IN    PRAYER.  6^ 

end;  the  sin  opens  the  way  to  a  possible  salva- 
tion. Blind  Bartimaeus  had  been  only  a  common 
Jew,  with  perhaps  a  special  sneer  for  Christ  on 
his  lips,  apart  from  his  lifelong  affliction.  Had 
he  been  the  favored  child  of  wealth  or  learning, 
the  question  of  personal  bodily  want,  which  held 
in  it  the  germ  of  his  spiritual  want,  would  never 
have  been  so  pressed  on  his  notice.  But  he  is 
blind.  He  is  a  beggar.  His  ear  is  quicker  for 
the  loss  of  his  eye.  He  overhears  the  crowd  talk 
of  a  miracle-worker.  That  is  his  need.  All 
needs  are  akin.  In  his  soul  the  man  needs  light 
as  well  as  in  his  body.  Jesus  manages  the  inter-  ^ 
view  so  as  to  make  the  man  pray.  Then  comes 
the  answer  of  sight  alike  for  the  inner  and  outer 
eye.  In  such  a  probationary  world  there  is  the 
constant  management  of  providence.  God  ex- 
torts prayer  where  he  cannot  persuade  it.  Life 
is  now  crowded  with  joys  which  are  intended  to 
evoke  the  grateful  prayer  of  our  favored  hours; 
and  now,  again,  life  has  its  sorrows  that  press 
prayers  from  trembling  lips,  and  we  can  only 
struggle  toward  saying,  *' Thy  will  be  done." 

Milton  mourned  his  blindness  in  a  sonnet  which 
all  the  world  knows  by  heart. 

"  Seasons  return,  but  not  to  me  returns 
The  sight  of  vernal  bloom  or  summer  rose, 
But  cloud,  instead,  and  ever-during  dark 
Surround  me,  from  the  cheerful  ways  of  men 


€'4         PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

Cut  off,  and  for  the  book  of  knowledge  fair, 
Presented  with  a  universal  blank." 

He,  however,  lived  to  regard  his  physical  blind- 
ness as  sent  of  God  for  the  purpose  of  opening 
the  eyes  of  his  soul. 

"  On  my  bended  knee 

I  recognize  Thy  purpose,  clearly  shown  ; 

My  vision  Thou  hast  dimmed  that   I  m.ay  see  Thyself,  Thyself 
alone." 

It  is  as  true  of  our  home  life  as  of  our  personal 
that  it  abounds  in  providences  that  evoke  prayer. 
How  fit  that  the  common  joys  and  sorrows  of  the 
household  should  all  be  spread  out  before  God ; 
that  the  family  devotion  should  pour  itself  out 
in  entreaty  for  divine  guidance  in  the  days  of  per- 
plexity and  trial;  that  mercies,  too,  as  they  come 
and  go,  should  be  recounted  at  the  altar  of  the 
home.  In  grief  there  is  the  prayer  of  submission  ; 
in  joy,  the  thanksgiving  of  a  happy  heart.  Burns' 
*'  Cotter's  Saturday  Night  "  has  for  its  chief  gem 
the  stanza  which  describes  the  household  worship, 
and  Wordsworth  finds  homes  of  prayer  amid  the 
English  hills. 

Nor  is  public  prayer  to  be  overlooked.  The 
instinct  of  worship,  as  universal  as  is  the  race, 
calls  for  its  recognition  in  public  services  of  de- 
votion. Man's  earliest  recorded  structure  was  an 
altar,  and  his  most  finished  work  on  the  planet, 


SIN  AS  A  FACTOR  IN  PRAYER.       65 

hitherto,  has  been  the  temple  of  religion.  To 
deny  this  instinct  its  place,  the  sanctuary,  and 
its  time,  the  Sabbath,  is  to  hinder  if  not  to 
quench  a  human  sentiment  vital  alike  to  civiliza- 
tion and  religion.  We  read  of  a  "  place  where 
prayer  was  wont  to  be  made."  Creatures  of 
habit,  we  are  to  get  wonted  to  times  and  places 
for  exercise  of  devotion.  And  so  closet  prayer 
and  family  prayer  and  public  prayer  are  all  to  be 
used  by  the  man  who  would  do  his  full  duty  to 
God  and  self  and  his  fellow-man.  For  it  is  one's 
duty  to  others  to  do  them  all  the  good  he  can. 
And  how  can  one  do  this  except  as  he  is  in  that 
moral  mood  in  which  he  can  supplicate  God  for 
all  blessing  in  behalf  of  his  fellows  ?  It  is  as  much 
^  one's  duty  to  pray  for  men  as  to  deal  honestly 
with  them ;  to  give  them  an  example  in  the  mat- 
ter of  devotion  as  well  as  in  every  other  line  of 
human  duty. 

And  so  the  range  of  prayer,  widened  by  men's 
sinful  necessities,  is  very  great,  and  is  growing  in 
size  as  men  see  and  feel  the  pressure  of  human 
want.  And  the  volume  of  prayer  is  daily  getting 
to  be  larger,  since  every  rising  and  setting  sun 
sees  more  men  who  are  praying  men.  Says  an- 
other, "  There  arises  from  all  parts  of  the  world 
at  the  morning  and  the  evening,  and  through  the 
labors  of  the  day,  a  perpetual  incense  of  adora- 


66  PRAYER   AS   A  THEORY   AND   A  FACT. 

tion  and  of  petition;  it  contains  the  sum  of  the 
deepest  wants  of  the  human  race  in  its  fears  and 
hopes,  its  anguish  and  thankfulness;  it  is  laden 
with  sighs,  with  tears,  with  penitence,  with  faith, 
with  submission  ;  the  broken  heart,  the  bruised 
spirit,  the  stifled  murmur,  the  ardent  hope,  the 
haunting  fear,  the  mother's  darling  wish,  the 
child's  simple  prayer — all  the  burdens  of  the  soul, 
all  wants  and  desires,  nowhere  else  uttered,  meet 
together  in  that  sound  of  many  voices  which  as- 
cends into  the  ears  of  the  Lord  God  of  Hosts. 
And  mingled  with  all  these  cravings  and  utter- 
ances is  one  other  voice,  one  other  prayer,  their 
symphony,  their  melody,  their  accord — deeper 
than  all  these,  tenderer  than  all  these,  mightier 
than  all  these — the  tones  of  One  who  knows  us 
better  than  we  know  ourselves,  and  who  loves  us 
better  than  we  love  ourselves,  and  who  brings  all 
these  myriad  fragile  petitions  with  one  prevalent 
intercession,  purified  by  His  own  holiness  and 
the  hallowing  power  of  his  work."  And  these 
praying  men,  though  all  confessing  to  weakness 
and  sin,  give  witness — and  their  witness  is  that  of 
men  who  have  no  moral  superiors  on  the  planet 
— that  God,  for  Christ's  sake,  has  heard  and  does 
hear  their  petitions  and  send  them  answers;  that 
answers  are  yet  to  come,  since  some  of  their  pe- 
titions are  reserved  in  those  golden  vials  which 


SIN  AS  A  FACTOR  IN  PRAYER.       6/ 

contain  "the  prayers  of  the  saints:"  and,  when 
the  best  time  for  the  reserved  answers  shall  come, 
they  believe  that  these  also  shall  be  added  to  the 
great  and  greatly  accumulating  mass  of  testimony 
that  God  "  is  the  rewarder  of  them  that  diligently 
seek  him." 

To  quote  from  the  many  volumes  of  authentic 
and  of  personal  witness,  as  to  remarkable  answer, 
is  needless  when  every  praying  man  testifies  that 
along  the  lines  of  a  vital  and  personal  experience 
God  has  heard  his  supplication.  Is  there  any 
other  proverb  so  common  and  so  confidently  used 
in  praying  circles  as  this,  that  "  praying  breath 
was  never  spent  in  vain  "  ? 


68  PRAYER  AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT, 


CHAPTER   V. 

THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD  AS  RELATED  TO  PRAYER. 

Spiritual  faculties  are  dominant  by  virtue  of 
their  nature.  "The  moral  sense/'  says  Mr.  Dar- 
win, "is  the  most  important  of  all  the  differences 
between  man  and  the  lower  animals." 

Conscience  is  regal.  It  holds  sceptre  over 
everything  done  in  any  part  of  our  complex  na- 
ture. Considered  then  as  a  personal  experience 
in  a  man's  soul,  "  the  kingdom  of  God  within  us  " 
must  use  for  its  own  purposes  not  only  the  soul 
itself,  but  the  body  and  the  mind  as  well. 

In  like  manner,  if  we  think  of  the  "  kingdom 
of  God  "  as  a  world-wide  reality,  it  must  be  regal. 
It  can  be  nothing  unless  dominant.  The  final 
ends  of  all  things  must  be  moral  ends.  And  the 
greatest  of  all  realities,  this  moral  "  kingdom  of 
God,"  may  be  expected  to  employ  in  its  own 
advancement  all  mental  and  physical  faculties. 
Natural  laws  do  not  work  out  of  their  own  plane; 
but  it  is  the  mission  of  spiritual  laws,  i.  e.,  the 
laws  of  "  the  kingdom  of  God,"  to  seek  suprem- 
acy everywhere.     Spiritual  facts  will  then  always 


THE   KINGDOM    OF   GOD   AND    PRAYER.         69 

be  seeking  to   incarnate   themselves  in   physical 
facts.     Moral    ideas  will   always  tend   to   break 
through    into    their    fit    and    visible    expression. 
This  is  the  true  genesis  of  the  creation.    Natural 
facts  are  intended,  more  or  less  truly,  to  express 
spiritual  ideas;  they  are  more  or  less  fitted  to  do 
it,   and  they  are  capable  of  being  employed  of 
God    both    in   usual   and   unusual   ways  for  his 
moral  ends.     There  is  thus  room  for  providence 
and  for  grace,  room  for  ordinary  working  and  for 
extraordinary  intervention.     Things  are  worked 
in  the  interests  of  something  higher  than  things. 
"  Science  is  classified  knowledge."     The  writer 
of  Genesis,  an  adept  in  both  Egyptian  and  He- 
brew lore,  asserts  the  primal  law  for  plant  and 
bird  and  beast :  it  was  to  bring  forth  "  after  its 
kind."     The  recognition  of  laws  of  nature  is  thus 
as  old  as  the  record  of  natural  fact,  though  the 
name  "  law,"  used  in  this  sense,  is  modern.     The 
more  facts  we  know,  and  the  more  we  know  the 
laws  of  them,  the  closer  we  bring  a  personal  God, 
not  only  to  the  physical  world,  but  to  the  moral 
world  as  well.     Law  is  method.     And  the  divine 
method  of  steady  working  in  nature  and  of  steady 
obligation  in  the  moral  world  of  things  induces 
''confidence"    or    ''belief"    or    "trust,"   which, 
needed  everywhere,  culminates  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment, with  its  specific  demand  of  "  faith  in  the 


70  PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

Lord  Jesus  Christ  "  as  the  vital  condition  of  the 
spiritual  life.  And  a  very  direct  expression  of 
this  faith  is  through  prayer;  and  hence  the  decla- 
ration *' Whosoever  shall  call  upon  the  name  of 
the  Lord  shall  be  saved;  for  with  the  heart 
man  believeth." 

In  marking  the  progress  of  this  spiritual  king- 
dom we  shall  see,  first,  that  God  uses  times  of 
great  physical  want  to  make  men  prayerful.  We 
shall  see,  second,  that  he  employs  general  laws 
in  the  processes  of  his  kingdom — a  fact  awaking 
grateful  prayer.  And  we  shall  also  see,  further 
on  in  the  discussion,  that  at  definite  eras  God 
has  given  the  evidential  miracle,  in  connection 
with  prayer. 

(i)  The  very  wants  and  woes  which  come  out 
of  human  sin  have  been  pressed  into  use  in  ex- 
tending God's  kingdom.  Sorrows  are  not  bless- 
ings in  themselves.  Physical  pain  is  not  the 
award  fdr  right-doing.  But  by  the  wonderful 
overruling  power  of  God  those  penalties  which 
follow  sin  as  shadow  follows  substance  are  made 
of  spiritual  use.  Physical  want  has  evoked  prayer. 
Nature  in  agony  is  not  atheistic.  The  soul's 
prayers  are  sometimes  extorted  from  unwilling 
lips  at  the  outset  of  a  new  life.  Afflictions  are 
used  as  God's  angels.  He  compels  recognition. 
The  marshalling  of  events,  now  in  the  personal  life 


THE   KINGDOM    OF   GOD   AND    PRAYER.         7 1 

and  again  In  the  national  history,  has  made  men 
say,  ''  That  is  the  finger  of  God."  Now  and  then 
the  drapery  falls  off  the  arm,  and  God  bares  it, 
so  that  men  see  him  interfering  at  the  exact  time 
with  some  remarkable  providence  which  changes 
the  fate  of  a  nation.  Then  men  are  called  to 
stand  still  and  see  the  glory  of  God.  Then  the 
usual  calm  of  indifference  is  broken  and  God 
speaks  and  all  men  listen.  And  a  nation  some- 
times adds  the  reverent  ''Amen,"  while  prayerful 
disciples  lead  a  waiting  host  in  their  supplication 
or  their  thanksgiving. 

It  may  be  urged  that  such  hours  are  hours  of 
excitement.  Granted.  But  why  not  here  the 
excitements  of  noble  feeling  as  elsewhere  men 
yield  to  baser  Impulses  ?  Such  elevated  hours  are 
most  honorable  and  the  experience  of  them  most 
trustworthy.  We  are  made  glad  that  our  human 
nature  Is  capable  of  such  excitement.  We  are 
nearer  In  them  to  our  normal  state.  The  Image 
of  God  shows  then  fairest  In  men.  The  deeper 
down  goes  the  plummet  In  these  deep-sea  sound- 
ings, the  more  profound  is  the  conviction  it 
touches  that  man,  In  the  essential  nature  in  which 
God  originally  made  him,  was  meant  to  pray  and 
was  a  being  made  to  receive  divine  answer.  In 
our  truest  moments,  when  the  great  emergencies 
of  being  are  on  us,  and  we  are  stripped  of  the 


72    PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

conventionalisms  that  clothe  so  much  of  our 
outer  life,  and  we  get  back  to  our  real  selves  and 
look  upon  our  deeper  wants,  we  find  that  we 
cannot  do  without  a  God  to  whom  we  may  speak, 
and  who  will  speak  to  us  in  turn. 

And  spiritual  as  well  as  physical  want  has 
drawn  men  to  look  away  from  self  to  God  in 
prayer.  In  numberless  cases  men  have  sought 
God  separately,  and  then  have  come  out  of  the 
closet  to  find  men  all  about  them  led  in  the  same 
way.  Men  have  prayed  singly  and  then  prayed 
in  companies,  and  the  place  has  seemed  almost 
to  be  shaken ;  and  even  nations  have  shared  in 
the  impulse  to  call  on  God  in  times  of  broad 
and  profound  reformation.  So  that  national 
distress  has  played  its  part  in  starting  the  soul's 
cry  for  its  God.  The  dark  days  of  personal  and 
national  life  have  been  those  in  which  the  divine 
visitation  has  been  especially  sought.  ''  In  their 
affliction  they  will  seek  Me." 

(2)  God's  use  of  general  laivs  in  the  physical 
world  has  been  in  the  interests  of  religion,  and 
so  has  helped  men's  faith  in  prayer. 

As  to  what  are  popularly  called  the  "  laws  of 
nature,"  some  strong  thinkers  contend  that  the 
phrase  simply  voices  a  conception  that  exists  only 
in  our  own  minds.  It  is,  they  claim,  only  a  mere 
phrase  that  covers  our  ignorance;  at  most,  that  it 


THE   KINGDOM    OF   GOD    AND    PRAYER.         73 

is  but  our  poor  human  method  of  conceiving  God's 
way  of  doing  things.  A  law  of  nature  is  our 
statement,  they  say,  of  God's  ordinary  procedure 
so  far  as  known  to  us.  So  that  a  miracle  would 
be  his  activity  in  unusual  ways.  Thus  laws  of 
nature,  it  is  said,  exist  for  us  and  not  for  Him. 

But  others  claim  that  God's  regularity  in  doing 
certain  things  can  be  nothing  else  or  other  than 
the  result  of  a  definite  plan  that  he  will  so  do 
them.  And,  thus,  a  law  of  nature  would  be  the 
expression  of  his  orderliness  in  acts.  All  hangs 
on  his  will  or  plan.  It  is  even  possible  to  con- 
ceive of  the  laws  of  nature  as  being  very  different. 
There  was  no  necessity  for  creating  at  all ;  none  for 
arranging  these  great  general  laws ;  none  for  this 
evolution  by  fixed  laws  working  out  a  series  of 
results.  And  careful  scientists  are  pointing  out 
the  fact  that  as  the  physical  universe,  with  its 
objects  and  the  laws  of  them,  began  to  be  in  time, 
so  in  time  it  and  its  laws  will  end ;  and  they  have 
it  for  a  problem  of  actual  calculation  to  discover 
when  the  physical  energy  will  have  expended 
itself.  They  are  asking,  What  then,  when  this 
form  of  things  shall  have  passed  away  ?  It  is  said 
that  the  system  of  general  laws,  admirable  for 
many  purposes,  has  such  lack  of  adaptation  to 
other  ends  as  to  show  it  to  be  a  dispensation  not 
always  to  endure.     It  was  introduced  to  super- 


74    PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

sede  a  former  system,  and  it  will  be  abrogated  in 
behalf  of  one  that  is  to  follow.  And  so  it  is 
claimed  to  be  not  impossible  that  Infinite  Wis- 
dom should  put  it  aside  at  will,  in  the  interests 
of  the  spiritual  kingdom.  We  do  not  need  to 
claim  that  any  such  suspension  has  ever  occurred. 
Great  enough  to  manage  all  physical  laws  in  the 
interests  of  his  kingdom,  we  may  mark  with  de- 
light God's  method  of  holding  himself  to  his  fixed 
law,  and  yet  so  working  events  that,  as  a  whole, 
they  accomplish  his  final  ends.  The  material 
system  hangs  on  his  will,  is  supported  by  his  arm, 
and  lasts  as  long  as  he  shall  choose.  Here  is  the 
place  for  devout  ascriptions  of  glory  to  him  who 
formed  this  wide  system  of  fixed  physical  law. 
All  things  are  included  in  his  plan.  Let  him  be 
thanked.  All  his  works  praise  him.  No  thought- 
ful man  may  be  mute.  We  will  magnify  and  laud 
his  name.  All  orderly  and  beautiful  things,  all 
evolutions  of  his  vast  and  comprehensive  system 
as  they  come  out  into  view,  shall  not  only  wake 
our  delight  but  stir  our  devotion.  It  is  for  his 
honor  and  for  our  good  that  we  daily  perceive 
and  acknowledge  his  method  of  ruling  the  world 
by  law.  So  that  this  benignant  aspect  of  nature 
shall  be  a  source  of  our  spiritual  comfort  in  God. 
The  bow  of  promise  thrown  across  the  retreating 
tempest-cloud,   a  thing   occurring   indeed   under 


THE   KINGDOM    OF   GOD   AND    PRAYER.         75 

natural  law,  is  ordained  of  God  as  a  sort  of  natu- 
ral sacrament.  It  is  to  be  associated  evermore 
in  human  history  with  the  divine  promise  that 
seed-time  and  harvest  shall  not  fail.  The  bow 
spanned  an  altar.  And  to  primitive  man  there 
was  taught  the  alphabet  of  that  great  literature 
which  the  more  advanced  centuries  must  learn, 
viz.,  that  all  physical  things,  seen  with  anointed 
eyes,  are  the  visible  symbols  of  spiritual  facts. 
They  are  intended  to  stir  the  heart  to  prayer  and 
the  lip  to  praise. 

^^"^(3)  The  kingdom  of  God  has  had  eras  calling 
for  special  intervention  ;  and  these  have  been 
times  of  especial  movement  in  prayer. 

So  far  as  we  know,  there  was  no  intervention 
upon  the  established  order  of  nature  for  twenty- 
five  hundred  years.  The  primitive  ages  must 
learn  to  trust  the  stability  of  nature,  and  see  in  it 
token  of  the  stability  of  God.  But  a  lesson  over- 
learned  may  be  as  injurious  as  one  unlearned. 
The  danger  to  the  nations  in  Moses' time  was  not 
of  non-belief,  but  of  over-behef;  not  of  thinking 
that  God  was  not,  but  that  there  was  nothing  save 
God.  From  the  stability  of  nature  men  have 
deduced  Pantheism— the  belief  that  God  is  all. 
And  the  opening  words  of  Moses'  story  of  crea- 
tion are  a  protest  against  this  misreading  of  the 
universe:    '' In  the  beginning,  God."     There  was  a 


76  PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

personal  being  distinct  from  the  world.  ''  In  the 
beginning  God  created."  Then  matter  is  not 
God,  nor  the  universe  an  emanation  from  his 
substance,  but  simply  a  work  of  his  hand.  ''  In 
the  beginning  God  created  the  heavens  and  the 
earth."  Then  the  world  is  not  eternal  nor  nec- 
essary, but  a  created  fact  in  time,  and  standing 
in  the  will  of  the  Creator.  The  historian,  looking 
back  from  the  days  of  the  exodus,  wrote  as  if  a 
spectator  of  the  genesis.  He  sees  the  creation 
of  plant  and  bird  and  beast.  He  recognizes  the 
law  of  "  after  its  kind  "  as  the  method  of  develop- 
ment. Science  started  there,  in  the  recognition 
of  fixed  general  law.  But  religion  started  also  in 
the  same  great  Theistic  fact.  And  the  worship 
of  the  unchangeable  Creator  was  the  unchange- 
able duty  clearly  seen  by  man.  Only  this  is  to  be 
noted:  that  the  steady  gaze  of  a  man  on  this 
form  of  the  fact  has  always  the  danger  on  the  one 
side  of  falling  off  into  the  scepticism  that  says 
*'  law  is  enough  without  a  personal  God,"  or  else, 
on  the  other  side,  into  the  pantheism  which  says 
*'  all  is  God."  Universal  materialism  or  universal 
spiritism  were  the  two  equal  dangers  of  the 
world  when  Moses  wrote  his  Genesis.  The  first 
would  tend  to  atheistic  denial,  the  second  to  pan- 
theistic indifference.  The  latter  was  the  tendency 
of  Egyptian  thought  as  felt  by  the  Hebrews  in 


THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD   i^ND   PRAYER.         "JJ 

Goshen.  And  against  it  Moses  would  guard  his 
people,  and  the  whole  wide  world  which  should 
read  the  story  of  creation  from  his  pen. 

But  the  Hebrew  was  to  find  his  trial  in  the 
monotony  of  fixed  law.  He  longed  for  interven- 
tion during  the  dreary  years  of  Egyptian  bond- 
age. There  had  been  no  notable  interference 
with  the  regular  routine  of  nature  for  centuries. 
If  God  did  not  come  in  some  new  way,  then  his 
promise  would  fail.  The  era  at  length  dawned. 
The  hour  struck.  The  prayer  was  heard.  The 
cry  of  the  slave  moved  the  arm  of  Jehovah.  The 
cycle  had  come  round.  Creative  power  had  in- 
tervened once  on  what  was  an  older  order,  and 
saving  power  might  intervene  to  keep  the  crea- 
tive work  from  moral  failure.  Ruin  stared  them 
in  the  face.  Salvation  was  the  only  hope  from 
annihilation.  The  ever-present  idea  of  a  spiritual 
salvation  bursts  through  into  the  realm  of  the 
physical ;  and  supernatural  deliverance  is  God's 
object  lesson.  The  salvation  of  the  people  of 
Israel  is  to  be  a  teaching  for  all  time.  It  shall 
teach  the  world,  as  each  individual  looks,  at  some 
period  of  his  life,  upon  the  question  of  personal 
and  spiritual  salvation.  Millions  of  men  shall 
learn,  each  for  himself,  of  God's  spiritual  inter- 
vention in  the  hour  of  the  soul's  struggle  with 
the  bondage  of  sin.     We  do  not  read  this  thing 


78    PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

into  the  story;  God  put  it  there.  His  deeper 
thoughts  are  always  striking  through  the  shell  of 
the  outward  world.  There  is  a  transparent  dial 
on  the  watch-tower  of  human  history,  and  God  is 
the  light  behind  that  makes  it  an  illuminated  dial 
which  gets  the  gaze  of  men  in  the  darkest  night. 
And  the  man  who  led  his  people  to  salvation, 
and  through  whom  the  deliverances  at  the  Sea 
and  in  the  Wilderness  were  wrought,  was  himself 
a  praying  man.  He  lived  and  walked  and  talked 
with  God  as  a  friend.  In  that  march,  more  cele- 
brated than  any  other  in  history,  in  which  he  led 
an  undisciplined  horde  through  unparalleled  diffi- 
culties to  a  splendid  success,  at  every  turn  he 
called  on  God.  Next  after  our  Lord's  interces- 
sory prayer  for  his  disciples,  the  grandest  instance 
of  that  kind  of  petition  the  world  ever  saw  came 
from  the  heart  and  lip  of  this  man  Moses.  Every 
miracle  of  his  is  born  in  prayer.  He  is  clearly 
the  greatest  genius  of  his  time,  and  yet  in  noth- 
ing more  remarkable  than  in  what,  if  one  may 
reverently  say  it,  may  be  called  his  genius  for 
prayer.  One  of  his  odes — or  shall  we  call  it  his 
prayer  ? — sounds  down  through  the  centuries,  and 
is  read  to-day  at  the  grave  of  our  dead.  "  Lord, 
thou  hast  been  our  dw^elling  place  in  all  genera- 
tions "  is  still  the  funeral  march  of  the  world. 
Its  tread  is  stately.     Its  m.usic,  touching  Avidest 


THE   KINGDOM    OF   GOD   AND    PRAYER.         79 

extremes,  has  nowhere  a  false  note.  From  the 
serene  heaven  where  God  sits  from  everlasting  to 
everlasting  in  solemn  enthronement,  the  song 
comes  down  to  the  earth  and  finds  man  in  his 
three-score  years  and  ten,  and  these  years  are 
labor  and  sorrow  and  he  returns  to  the  dust. 
And  the  organ  tone  is  steady.  The  amazing 
transition  has  no  jar.  The  song  is  sustained  in 
all  its  variations.  The  man  who  made  this  song 
or  offered  this  prayer  had  been  much  alone  with 
God.     He  is  priest  as  well  as  prince. 

If  we  examine  closely  the  miracles  of  the  De- 
liverance, we  shall  find  them  so  wrought  as  to 
put  honor  on  natural  laws.  The  Nile  at  times 
even  now  is  red;  but  it  is  made  to  run  actual 
blood.  The  lice  and  frogs  at  certain  seasons  are 
a  natural  plague;  but  they  are  made  intolerable. 
Diseases  of  the  skin,  always  the  pest  of  Egypt, 
are  made  absolutely  unendurable.  First-born 
sons  have  died  before;  but  a  first-born  child  dead 
in  every  Egyptian  and  not  one  in  a  Hebrew  home, 
on  a  given  night,  was  a  form  of  dealing  about  which 
neither  stupidity  nor  perversity  could  possibly 
make  a  mistake.  Not  in  one  case  was  a  law  of 
nature  repealed  or  even  suspended.  Just  the  op- 
posite of  that  was  what  was  done.  The  laws 
were  used  Intensely,  with  greater  energy.  They 
were    worked    with    supernatural    might.      Any- 


8o  PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

thing  like  suspension  would  have  meant  atheism 
to  the  Egyptian,  would  have  made  him  cry  out 
the  rather,  "  There  is  no  God."  This  intense 
working  of  law  until  it  amounts  to  miracle  is  the 
thing  that  makes  the  Egyptian  say,  "  There  is  a 
God;  and  that  God  is  Jehovah."  The  whole 
transaction  honored  law  and  honored  God.  The 
great  mark  was  set  on  those  events,  so  that  in  all 
ages  we  can  see  the  difference  between  the  false 
and  true  miracle.  The  true  sign  from  God  uses 
law  for  all  it  is  worth ;  it  frequently  obtains  its 
results  by  infusing  superior  energy  into  natural 
law  ;  while  the  false  miracle  has  no  basis  in  nature 
and  no  use  for  law.  The  **  east  wind  "  at  the  Red 
Sea  has  its  place  as  well  as  the  rod  of  Moses. 
The  "  few  loaves  "  and  the.  "  small  fishes  "  have  a 
place  in  the  feeding  of  the  thousands.  Miracle 
is  always,  in  part,  natural.  It  is  never  entirely 
outside  of  physical  fact  and  law.  If  it  were  an 
outside  thing,  it  would  be  only  a  "  lying  wonder." 
Its  rank  would  be  that  of  the  "  ghost  story." 
True  miracle  is  never  without  its  material  basis. 
God  honors  natural  law  in  the  Biblical  miracles 
in  every  case. 

The  separation  of  Israel  from  Egypt,  their 
transportation  to  the  Sinaitic  peninsula,  their  na- 
tional organization,  and  their  religious  vitaliza- 
tion,  are  all  miraculous  in  a  peculiar  result,  never 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD  AND  PRAYER.    8 1 

before  sought  and  obtained.  That  new  national 
and  religious  life  is  the  miracle  of  history.  For, 
starting  there  in  that  Arabian  desert,  there  have 
gone  forth  to  the  world  certain  ideas  of  right- 
eousness that  differ,  by  the  whole  diameter  of  hu- 
man thought,  from  any  other  ideas  the  older  na- 
tions had  ever  known.  Hints  of  the  idea  of 
righteousness,  of  the  clear  v/hiteness  of  the  divine 
nature,  the  reality  of  holiness,  had  been  given  to 
wandering  patriarch  and  scattered  tribe.  But 
they  had  died  out  of  memory,  if  indeed  they  had 
ever  been  given  into  its  charge. 

Among  these  conceptions  was  the  peculiar  one 
of  prayer  to  the  Holy  God  through  a  Holy  Pro- 
pitiator. There  had  been  unholy  gods  and  un- 
holy propitiations,  unholy  sacrifices  and  offer- 
ings for  unholy  ends.  But  this  Hebrew  idea 
was  unlike  any  other  the  world  had  known. 
There  had  been,  in  these  mistaken  propitiations, 
the  expression  of  a  craving  after  God  through 
some  mediation.  It  was  a  blind  instinct,  and  in 
that  form  working  mischief.  Now,  for  the  first 
time  on  any  large  scale,  the  conception  was  to 
be  rid  of  superstition,  and  the  idea  of  a  holy  pro- 
pitiation was  to  find  its  fit  form.  That  whole 
Jewish  ritual  worship  was  simply  a  visible  prayer. 
It  was  man,  the  separated,  drawing  near  to  God 
in  a  kind  of  literal  and  visible  way.    And  the  wor- 


82       praye;r  as  a  theory  and  a  fact. 

shipper  came  always  through  a  ceremonially  clean 
bird  or  beast.  The  first  offering,  the  smoke  of 
which  ascended  each  morning  to  heaven,  was  that 
of  a  lamb  sacrificed — a  lamb,  the  emblem  of  pu- 
rity. But  the  lamb  vv^as  slain — the  emblem  of 
purity  making  by  its  death,  representatively,  a 
propitiation  for  man  the  sinner.  And  the  last 
sacrifice,  when  the  sun  was  sinking  into  the  Med- 
iterranean, was  the  same  offering  of  purity  for 
sinfulness,  that  man  might  be  accounted  pure  for 
the  sake  of  the  great  Propitiator,  whose  coming 
was  the  fulfilment  of  the  law  and  the  hope  of 
Israel  and  the  salvation  of  the  Gentiles.  It  was 
objective,  tangible  prayer.  It  was  addressed  to 
the  eye  of  God.  It  was  prayer  done  rather  than 
uttered,  made  rather  than  said.  It  was  God 
teaching  man  to  pray  by  material  things  and  by 
external  objects.  It  was  the  use  of  the  physical 
for  the  spiritual.  It  was  indeed  a  form  of  pri- 
mary instruction  ;  but  the  foremost  scholars  of  the 
moral  world  were  still  in  the  primary  class,  and 
they  needed  to  be  grounded  in  those  terms  of  the 
moral  alphabet  in  which  was  to  be  written  the 
gospel  literature  for  the  ages  to  come. 

In  the  march  of  Israel,  when  Sinai  was  left,  we 
see  the  blending  of  law  and  miracle,  and  how 
both  induced  men  to  pray  not  only  in  the  taber- 
nacle but  by  the  wayside. 


THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD   AND   PRAYER.         83 

Take  the  wonder  of  the  manna.     From  Egypt 
to  Canaan  was   forty  years.     During  that   time 
the  scanty  valleys  about  Mount  Seir  yielded  only 
a  meagre  supply  to  the  numerous  host.     Their 
food  was  supplemented  by  the  descending  manna, 
which  seems  to  have  fo^med  in  the  night  under 
the  clear  sky.     It  was  claimed  that  it  fell  from 
heaven.     Suppose  a_Hebrew,  born  twenty  years 
before  the  Exodus.    With  devout  heart  in  Egypt 
he  learns  to  worship  the  God  who  is  Creator  and 
Sustainer  of  all   things.     The  regularity  of   day 
and   night,  of  seed-time    and  harvest,   impresses 
him.     God  is  manifestly  to  be  depended  upon  in 
all  the  world ;  and  the  spectacle  calls  forth  his 
daily  thanksgiving.     This  man  enters  the  desert 
with  his  people.     He  sees  the  manna  every  morn- 
ing which  had  been  deposited  during  the  night. 
He  recognizes  the  new  wonder.     It  is  a  miracle 
from  the  hand  of  God  for  the  support  of  Israel. 
God    has    intervened.      This    m.an    is    devoutly 
moved,  prays  with  new  gratitude,  and  begs  that 
the  miracle  may  be  continued  until  the  people 
can  come  to  the  land  of  promise. 

Another  Hebrew  was  born  twenty  years  after 
the  Exodus.  Six  days  of  the  seven  he  sees, 
from  his  earliest  childhood,  the  manna  lying  on 
the  ground.  It  is  the  expected  thing.  It  occurs 
regularly.     He   never  has   known   anything  else 


84         PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

on  six  days  of  the  week.  He  is  no  more  aston- 
ished than  is  the  boy  on  a  New  Jersey  peach 
farm  to  see  once  a  year  peaches  on  the  trees.  It 
is  nature.  It  is  exactly  such  an  event  as  might 
be  expected.  There  is  some  sort  of  law  that 
brings  it  about.  It  is  no  more  miraculous  than 
the  sunrise.  It  is  no  more  a  sign  of  anything  pe- 
culiar than  are  the  starry  skies.  It  is  plain  that 
what  was  miraculous  to  the  one  man  was  only 
common  to  the  other.  What  then,  is  there  no 
line  between  the  natural  and  the  miraculous  ? 
Yes;  but  it  does  not  run  along  the  line  of  what 
is  more  or  less  an  exhibition  of  God's  power. 
For,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  it  would  take  just  as 
much  power  to  have  to-morrow's  sun  rise  in  the 
east  as  to  have  it  hindered  from  rising.  Nor  does 
it  depend  upon  the  recognition  of  God's  hand  in 
one  thing  more  than  in  another.  For  we  are  to 
see  equally  God's  hand  in  the  grain  that  waves  in 
Egypt  and  the  manna  that  falls  in  Arabia.  Yet 
we  call  the  one  natural  and  the  other  miraculous. 
It  is  clear,  then,  that  we  cannot  always  draw  the 
line  at  the  time.  The  natural  to  the  man  born 
twenty  years  after  the  Exodus  would  be  the  su- 
pernatural to  the  man  born  twenty  years  before. 
But  neither  of  them  had  the  true  perspective. 
They  did  not  see  God  seeking  one  end  in  two 
widely  different  ways.     They  could    not,  as  we 


THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD   AND   PRAYER.         85 

can,  take  in  the  whole  meaning  of  the  era  that 
called  for  the  manna  to  come,  and,  equally,  for  it 
at  a  given  point  to  cease.     We  are  able  to  look 
back  now  and  see  that  those  forty  years  were  the 
turning-point  in  the  moral  evolution  of  that  race. 
Certain  physical  manifestations  were  demanded 
in  order  to  accomplish  moral  ends.     The  miracu- 
lous is  credible  in  its  own  time  and  incredible 
elsewhere.     We,  with  wider  vision  than  either  of 
our  two  Hebrews,  can  praise  the  God  who  now  by 
the  regular  course  of  nature,  and  anon  by  special 
intervention,  was  using  nature  for  the  moral  ad- 
vancement of  his  kingdom.     Miracles  he  does  not 
scatter   promiscuously.     They  have    their  hour. 
They  meet  the  crisis  and  depart.     God  can  use 
them  here,  and   use  natural  law  in  its  ordinary 
workings  there.     They  can  never  for  a  long  time 
be  common.    And  when  we  are  asked  whether  God 
cannot  at  will  break  through  the  physical  order 
and  give  miraculous  answer  to  prayer,  we  must 
always  reply  in  the  affirmative.     But  when  asked 
whether  he  does  do  it,  and  is  to  be  expected  daily 
to  do  it,  we  must  answer  by  denial.     Whether 
he  will  do  it  or  not  seems,  judging  by  all  past 
history,  to  depend  upon  the  particular  position 
occupied  at  the  time  by  his  advancing  kingdom. 
He  works  by  eras.    He  has  his  "  set  times."    And 
when  these  eras  come  round  ao:ain,  it  is  reasona- 


86  PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

ble  to  believe  that  he  will  not  fail  in  the  needed 
miracle.  The  ordinary  and  the  extraordinary 
are  both  at  his  hand  and  stand  waiting  his  use. 
Nor  can  we  tell  when  he  will  use  special  interven- 
tion. At  times  we  men,  in  our  impatience,  feel 
that  God  must  speak  out ;  that  he  cannot  longer 
delay  special  manifestation ;  that  the  prevalent 
form  of  unbelief  demands  miraculous  answer  to 
prayer.  How  sometimes  our  human  impatience 
must  provoke  the  patience  of  God !  Men  say,  Let 
there  be  at  least  semi-miraculous  things  done  in 
answer  to  prayer.  As  if  there  were  no  answers 
if  no  miracles.  As  if  we  men  knew  "  the  times 
and  seasons."  As  if  we  rather  than  he  had 
notched  the  calendar  of  the  ages.  As  if  we  could 
instruct  the  Omniscient  One.  The  largest  and 
longest  opportunities  for  spiritual  progress  must 
come  in  between  these  eras  of  miracle.  For  it 
must  be  with  emergencies  as  it  is  with  miracles; 
they  depend  on  their  infrequency  for  their  char- 
acter. As  all  extremity  would  be  no  extremity, 
so  all  miracle  would  be  no  miracle. 

And  this  is  the  reply  that  might  be  made  to 
those  who  tell  us  that  were  there  only  faith 
enough  in  the  church  we  should  have  miracles,  at 
least  in  the  form  of  bodily  healing,  on  every  day 
of  the  year.  It  is  forgotten  that  in  such  a  case 
the    miracles    would    not    be    miracles    at    all. 


THE   KINGDOM    OF   GOD   AND    PRAYER.         8/ 

Through  their  very  commonness  they  would 
mean  nothing  as  special  intervention.  In  that 
case,  let  us  remember  that  miracles  would  be 
most  frequent  when  less  needed.  A  very  great 
measure  of  faith  and  prayerfulness  might  be  able 
to  dispense  with  them  altogether.  It  is  forgotten, 
too,  by  those  who  urge  this  view,  that  the  Scrip- 
tures represent  miracles  as  gifts  of  emergency, 
coming  when  faith  in  the  great  mass  of  God's 
people  is  low  and  prayer  is  slack  on  the  part  of 
good  men.  The  undevoutest  time  in  Hebrew 
history  was  the  era  of  the  miracles  of  the  Exodus. 
Miracle  is  the  resource  of  emergency.  When 
Elijah's  round  of  miracle  came  to  the  nation  it 
was  not  because  of  the  national  prayer  and  faith, 
but  the  rather  because  of  spiritual  dearth.  It  was 
not  the  reward  of  great  faith,  but  an  incentive 
to  it.  And  our  Lord's  miracles  met  an  emer- 
gency when  the  national  piety  was  at  its  lowest 
ebb.  Miracle  is  interference  for  salvation ;  and 
its  eras  are  when  love  is  cold  and  faith  is  weak  in 
the  people  at  large  and  only  a  few  are  waiting  on 
God.  It  is  the  hand  of  God's  intervention  thrust 
in  to  secure  the  attention  of  a  slumbering  world. 
It  comes  not  in  hours  of  abounding  faith.  Such 
hours  can  do  without  miracle.  Those  who  be- 
lieve most  need  miracle  the  least.  It  is  intended 
to   meet  and   counteract    unbelief.      An   age   of 


SS  PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

faith  would  be  harmed  by  the  distraction  of  too 
much  physical  manifestation.  The  time  must  be 
an  evil  time  to  call  for  such  intervention  in  hu- 
man history.  A  few  must  pray  in  the  present 
position  of  God's  kingdom ;  but  the  era  as  a 
whole  will  be  lacking  in  prayer.  And  this  lack 
is  the  emergency  which  makes  the  miracle  possi- 
ble and  credible. 

When  Israel  had  established  themselves  in 
Canaan  there  went  by  the  regularly  ordered  years. 
Fixed  law  ruled  the  times.  At  length  came  an 
era  threatening  the  national  life.  God,  ever  pres- 
ent to  the  few  praying  men,  seemed  far  away 
from  the  many.  There  was  call  for  the  advent 
of  "  the  Prophets."  They  were  cometary  men  in 
their  mission.  They  were  sudden  in  advent,  rush- 
ing in  from  outside  the  regular  order  and  work 
of  the  priesthood.  They  attracted  attention  by 
the  abruptness  with  which  they  came  and  went. 
They  speak  and  go.  They  are  a  *' voice."  They 
cry  out.  Looked  for  in  the  direction  whence 
comes  the  cry,  you  do  not  see  the  man ;  you  only 
hear  words.  It  is  a  message  left,  but  the  mes- 
senger has  gone.  "  Hear  the  word  of  the  Lord," 
is  the  summons  of  the  '*  voice."  The  aim  was  to 
startle  a  careless  age.  With  them  was  miracle. 
It  was  the  second  great  era,  as  the  time  of  the 
Exodus  had  been  the  first.     A  few  praying  souls 


THE   KINGDOM    OF   GOD   AND    PRAYER.         89 

had  wept  and  fasted  and  wrestled  for  a  manifes- 
tation of  God's  hand.  Oh,  that  "  he  would  bow 
the  heavens  and  come  down ! "  And  that  was  the 
very  thing  done  in  the  cluster  of  prophetic  mira- 
cles then  exhibited  to  the  nation.  Those  won- 
ders told  men  of  no  new  God,  but  only  this: 
that  the  One  who  had  wrought  wonders  in  Egypt 
was  still  God.  The  former  cycle  had  disclosed 
an  unknown  Jehovah  to  the  proud  nation  on  the 
Nile.  The  new  wonders  in  Palestine  were  the  man- 
ifestation of  the  well-known  God  among  his  own 
people.  It  was  the  distant  God  now  made  near, 
the  absent  God  made  present.  It  was  the  mani- 
festation of  a  God  vitally  active  and  supreme. 
Idols  should  for  once  be  counter-worked  on  their 
own  plane.  It  was  not  a  contest  between  a  God 
and  no  God ;  but  one  which  should  show  the  true 
God  superior  to  the  powers  of  nature  as  repre- 
sented by  heathen  worship.  Elijah  at  Carmel 
took  the  idol  prophets  on  their  own  ground. 
But  no  one  can  imagine  that  scene  on  Carmel 
apart  from  Elijah's  prayer.  The  ascending 
prayer  and  the  descending  altar-flame  are  parts 
of  one  grand  transaction. 

Once  more  the  ages  go  by.  The  nation  again 
deteriorates.  To  a  few  waiting  souls — "waiting 
for  the  consolation  of  Israel  "  is  the  happy  phrase 
which  describes  their  position — there  comes  the 


90  PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

whispered  secret  of  the  nearness  of  the  Messiah. 
He  was  born  in  the  Hne  of  men  royal  in  their 
prayers.  His  earthly  mother  was  a  praying 
maiden.  His  boyhood  finds  him  in  the  "  House 
of  Prayer,"  hearing  and  asking  questions,  some 
of  which  may  have  been  suggested  by  the  visible 
prayer   of    the   temple    service.      The    new    era 

\   dawns. 

"^  A  Christ  without  miracles  would  be  incredible, 
for  he  would  not  have  met  the  world's  vv^nt. 
But  in  the  most  stupendous  miracle  of  his  career, 
the  raising  of  Lazarus,  he  offers  the  word  of  prayer 
in  the  same  breath  with  the  word  of  command. 
Sometimes,  indeed,  virtue  went  out  of  him  mys- 
teriously, though  it  were  too  much  to  say  uncon- 
sciously. Sometimes  the  touch  of  the  sacred  hem 
of  his  garment  was  enough.  But  whenever  there 
was  need  that  men  should  specially  recognize 
God,  with  the  miracle  went  the  prayer.  When 
he  left  the  earth,  he  left  ringing  on  its  air  words 
which  warrant  the  expectation  that  there  were 
miracles  waiting  still  to  be  done. 

And  here  comes  in  a  question  up  to  which  all 
these  discussions  on  miracle  and  prayer  steadily 
lead  us.  It  is  this  :  Do  these  promises  of  miracle 
hold  good  to-day  ?  Were  they  for  our  time  ?  or 
was  there  a  restriction  to  apostolic  days  ?  Es- 
pecially has  it  been  claimed  that  "  the  healing  of 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD  AND  PRAYER.    9 1 

the  sick  "  is  a  blessing  granted  for  all  time ;  that 
*'  the  prayer  of  faith  "  can  bring  bodily  healings 
which  differ  in  nothing  from  those  done  by  the 
Lord  or  the  apostles.  And  when  it  is  claimed 
that  the  days  of  miraculous  answer  to  prayer  are 
not  past,  and  that  only  lack  of  earnest  faith  and 
fervent  supplication  is  the  hindrance  to  miracle, 
the  matter  needs  to  be  gravely  considered.  For 
if  it  be  God's  will  that  *'  bodily  healings  "  should 
still  be  granted  on  the  plane  of  those  in  Christ's 
time,  and  if  the  fault  is  ours  that  thousands  of 
the  sick  languish  who  might  be  healed  and  saved 
from  death  by  our  faith  and  prayer,  there  would 
seem  to  be  a  most  frightful  charge  of  inhumanity 
against  us.  Nor  inhumanity  alone  ;  but  we  are 
holding  back  a  demonstration  of  God's  power 
which  we  were  appointed  to  exhibit  unto  men. 
On  the  other  hand,  no  innocency  of  intention  can 
make  it  other  than  a  most  injurious  mistake  to 
expect,  without  warrant,  a  series  of  miracles  to- 
day. The  claims  of  wonderful  results  are  indeed 
made.  But,  so  far  as  can  be  ascertained,  these 
alleged  results  are  hardly  miraculous.  They 
scarcely  exceed,  if  at  all,  those  claimed  by  vari- 
ous specialists  in  the  arts  of  wonderful  cure.  The 
advertised  healings  in  the  latter  case  are  very 
numerous,  and  are  often  genuine.  It  is  easy  to 
use  the  word  "  miraculous  "  in  a  very  loose  and 


92    PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

limited  sense.  But  such  a  sense  belittles  the 
Biblical  miracles  and  the  moral  truth  that  goes 
with  them.  A  certain  class  of  practitioners  pub- 
lish their  cures,  but  not  their  failures.  One  can 
only  know  of  the  latter  by  learning  of  the  single 
instances  in  local  circles.  There  are  religious 
circles  where  the  cure  by  the  prayer  of  faith, 
attempted  by  very  devout  souls,  under  the  mis- 
taken belief  that  miracles  still  remain,  has  not 
been  a  success,  and  in  the  terrible  reaction  a 
poor  soul  has  lost  all  faith  in  prayer  and  in  God 
for  a  time.  To  claim  what  God  has  not  promised 
in  the  line  of  miracles  is  certainly  dangerous.  It 
may  be  as  wrong  to  claim  too  much  as  to  claim 
too  little.  It  is  not  at  all,  here  and  now,  a  ques- 
tion about  praying  for  the  restoration  of  the  sick 
as  we  pray  for  all  other  physical  things  that  stand 
in  any  relation  to  our  spiritual  life.  This  is  gra- 
ciously permitted,  and  many  know  what  it  is  to 
receive  answers  to  prayer  for  physical  things. 
But  the  question  now  is  of  miraculous  works  of 
healing  on  the  plane  of  those  in  the  days  of  our 
Lord.  The  allegation  by  some  good  men  is  that 
such  things  were  promised,  and  that  faith  and 
prayer  would  bring  them  to-day. 

The  answer  to  these  inquiries  must  depend 
upon  the  express  words  of  the  New  Testament. 
These  are  to  be  interpreted  by  the  laws  which 


THE   KINGDOM    OF   GOD   AND   PRAYER.         93 

govern  all  language.  They  must  be  understood 
in  their  connection.  And  our  idea  of  their  mean- 
ing cannot  but  be  affected  by  what  we  can  learn 
of  miracles  in  the  past  as  pertaining,  in  their 
kind,  to  separate  eras  of  the  kingdom  of  God. 
The  words  v/ill  also  be  affected  for  us  by  the 
views  which  the  study  of  the  Bible  has  led  us  to 
form  of  miracles  as  outside  evidences  of  religion, 
or  2iS  parts  of  the  scheme  of  religion  itself. 

The  verses  are  these :'"  ''  These  signs  shall  fol- 
low them  that  believe.  They  shall  (i)  cast  out 
devils;  they  shall  (2)  speak  with  new  tongues; 
they  shall  (3)  take  up  serpents  ;  and  (4)  if  they 
shall  drink  any  deadly  thing  it  shall  not  hurt 
them ;  they  shall  (5)  lay  hands  on  the  sick  and 
they  shall  recover."  To  these  are  added  by  our 
Lord  elsewhere  the  words  '*  heal  the  lepers,"  an 
act  which  comes  under  the  class  numbered  (5). 
Also,  they  are  (6)  to  ''  cast  out  devils ; "  and  they 
are  (7)  to  ''  raise  the  dead."f 
,  On  these  passages,  it  should  be  noted  that  the 
Nl  air  and  tone  of  them  suggest  the  local  and  the 
temporary.  They  sound  like  their  age.  Their 
color  is  that  of  the  transient.  There  is  no  hint 
of  their  extension  beyond  a  narrow  period.  They 
were  certainly  the  things  for  that  time;  nor  is 
there,  as  in  other  things  that  were  to  endure,  any 
*jMark,  xvi.  17,  iS.  fMatt.,  x.  8. 


94  TRAYER  AS   A  THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

hint  of  permanence.  If  they  were  to  hold  good 
during  the  centuries  until  Christ  should  come,  it 
is  more  than  strange  that  nothing  is  said  about 
this  kind  of  ministry  as  a  permanent  gift  to  Chris- 
tians. 

So,  too,  it  is  to  be  noticed  that  the  words 
quoted  from  Matthew,  viz. :  *'  Heal  the  sick, 
cleanse  the  lepers,  raise  the  dead,  cast  out  devils," 
were  given  midway  in  our  Lord's  life,  when  the 
disciples  were  sent  out  on  a  temporary  mission. 
The  whole  affair  was  local.  They  were  not  "  to 
go  to  Samaria,  nor  to  the  Gentiles."  It  was  a 
short  preaching  tour  which  they  were  to  make, 
and  they  did  not  do  even  that.  Their  mission 
was  a  temporary  expedient,  and,  except  that  they 
found  ^'the  demons  subject  to  them,"  it  was  a 
failure ;  and  this  method  of  work  was  soon  aban- 
doned. 

If  it  were  true  that  the  miraculous  healing  of 
the  sick  abides  to-day,  then,  since  the  other  gifts 
which  are  neither  more  nor  less  miraculous  are 
named  in  the  same  sentence,  the  one  class  ought 
not  to  be  exercised  more  than  the  others. 
Asked  to  ''  cast  out  devils "  to-day,  it  is  some- 
times said  that  those  "  demoniacal  possessions 
have  ceased."  But  this  is  to  own  that  one  of  the 
things  commanded  is  local  and  is  temporary. 
Asked  to  "  raise  the  dead,"  which  those  disciples 


THE   KINGDOM    OF   GOD   AND    PRAYER.         95 

were  told  to  do  in  the  same  breath  in  which  they 
were  told  to  "heal  the  sick,"  there  is  no  other 
reply  than  that  "  Christians  now  have  not  faith 
enough  to  do  it."  But  if  it  were  a  matter  of 
faith,  then  the  confession  of  its  lack  is  most  dam- 
aging to  religion  itself.  An  unbeliever  has  the 
right  to  say,  *'  Raise  a  few  dead  men  before  you 
talk  of  saving  any  man's  soul.  For  if  your  re- 
ligion cannot  do  the  outward  and  easier  thing,  do 
not  urge  us  to  trust  it  for  the  soul's  salvation." 
By  putting  our  holy  religion  in  such  a  position 
we  do  it  an  unutterable  wrong  and  damage.  By 
insisting  that  prayer  shall  do  to-day  what  it  never 
was  intended  it  should  do  to-day,  by  encouraging 
men  to  expect  now  those  things  which  were  in- 
deed ''  signs  "  in  their  own  age,  we  are  injuring 
religion  and  are  causing  men  to  discredit  the  act- 
ual promises  which  belong  to  our  own  times. 
The  reaction  in  many  minds  has  been  fearful. 
They  have  trusted  promises  that  were  not  theirs, 
and  in  their  disappointment  have  been  spiritually 
paralyzed. 

So,  too,  the  emphasis  put  upon  the  miraculous 
healing  of  sickness  has  obscured  the  view  of  the 
spiritual  blessings  actually  offered  to  us  to-day. 
"  Ye  shall  do  greater  works  than  these."  But 
greater  physical  miracle  than  raising  the  dead  is 
impossible.     We  are  to  see  in  miracles  the  physi- 


96    PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

cal  scaffolding  soon  to  be  taken  down,  that  the 
spiritual  structure  may  be  shown  to  the  world. 
Moral  results  are  to  show  *'  the  power  of  God 
unto  salvation ;  "  and  these  are  the  superior  gift 
— the  sun  that  hides  those  stars.  These  are  the 
moral  miracles  that  displace,  through  the  grow- 
ing centuries,  the  crude  but  necessary  displays  of 
power  in  an  era  happily  now  gone  by  forever. 
Each  era  has  its  own  kind  of  manifestation.  The 
wonderful  works  which  introduce  it  soon  wane. 
Miracles  come  in  cycles,  serve  their  purpose,  and 
depart.  Some  good  men,  who  emphasize  the 
Second  Advent  of  the  Lord,  would  see  in  ''  gifts 
of  healing  in  answer  to  prayer  "  one  of  "  the  signs 
of  the  time  "  that  the  Lord's  coming  is  near.  But 
this  is  to  mix  strangely  the  peculiar  "signs"  of 
one  era  with  the  wholly  unlike  ''  signs  "  of  another 
era.  The  "  casting  out  of  demons,  the  healing  of 
the  sick,  the  cleansing  of  the  lepers,  and  the  rais- 
ing of  the  dead  "  are  expressly  said  to  be  the 
*'  signs "  afforded  at  the  First  Coming,  while 
such  unlike  things  as  wonders  among  the  nations 
and  signs  in  the  heavens  will  betoken  the  other. 
We  do  not  look  or  pray  for  a  repetition  of  the 
miracle  at  the  Red  Sea.  It  would  have  been 
incredible  in  Christ's  time.  It  betokens,  in  its 
kind  of  miracle,  its  own  peculiar  era.  No  more 
may  we  hope  and  pray  for  the  repetition  of  the 


THE   KINGDOM    OF   GOD   AND    PRAYER.         97 

Bethany  miracle.  For  the  "  raising  of  the  dead  " 
belonged  to  Christ's  era,  and  not  to  the  days  of 
Moses  nor  to  our  day.  The  centuries  do  not  go 
backv/ard.  The  Red  Sea  is  not  fo  be  divided 
again,  nor  Elijah's  altar-fire  be  seen  on  Carmel, 
nor  the  sick  miraculously  healed,  nor  another 
dead  man  raised  at  Nain  or  at  Bethany.  We  are 
past  all  that  in  our  position  in  God's  kingdom. 
We  are  looking  for  the  *' greater  things  than 
these  "  now,  and  awaiting  another  and  very  differ- 
ent class  of  miracles  to  come  and  close  the  dis- 
pensation. 'The  field  of  right  things  for  which  to 
pray  is  so  broad  that  we  need  not  pray  for  the 
wrong  things  unto  our  own  disappointment. 

Just  here  comes  into  view  a  very  important  in- 
quiry. Are  miracles  simply  evidential,  the  outside 
confirmation?  Or,  on  the  other  hand,  are  they 
inside  the  system  and  a  part  of  it  ? 

Very  much  depends  on  the  answer.  For  if  the 
first  view  is  correct,  then  it  vv'ould  seem  to  be 
desirable  that  we  should  pray  for  as  many  as  we 
can  get. 

The  Roman  Church  has  always  held  to  mira- 
cles. It  believes  them  continuous.  It  finds  in 
them  a  token  of  God's  constant  favor  to  **  the 
Church."  It  believes  in  them  as  special  blessings 
to  a  holy  person,  or  a  holy  thing  or  holy  place. 
Hence  nodding  statues  and  sacred  wells  and  heal- 
7 


98  PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

ing  charms  blessed  by  church  dignitaries.  And 
if  this  be  the  true  theory  of  the  miracle,  then  its 
continuousness  is  one  of  the  methods  of  convert- 
ing the  world.  In  this  case  prayer  is  to  rise  for 
them.  They  are  to  be  asked  for  daily,  and  we 
are  to  get  as  many  and  as  vast  miracles  done  for 
the  church  as  possible,  thereby  crushing  out  un- 
belief in  the  world.  That  would  seem  to  be  the 
first  duty,  on  this  view  of  the  miracle. 

But  miracles,  too  frequent,  cease  to  be  evi- 
dential of  anything  special,  and  indeed  cease  to 
be  miracles  at  all.  On  the  Roman  theory  they 
are  scattered  over  the  whole  dispensation,  only 
with  a  growing  frequency.  There  are  to  be  more 
and  more  of  them,  and  they  are  to  be  the  fresh 
evidence  granted  to  each  age  of  a  present  God.  It 
is  forgotten  that,  even  in  the  brief  ministry  of  our 
Lord,  miracles  were  so  frequent  as  seriously  to 
imperil  the  cause  at  one  time.  He  must  leave 
the  crowd,  or  they  would  take  him  for  a  sacred 
magician.  When  his  disciples  came  back  from 
their  preaching  tour  they  showed  themselves 
dazed  by  miracles.  They  cry  out,  "  Lord,  the 
devils  are  subject  unto  us!"  But  they  say  not 
one  word  about  their  preaching  of  the  new  gos- 
pel or  its  effect  on  men's  souls.  The  cause  was 
endangered  by  the  constant  demand  for  a  ''  sign," 
which  these  disciples  were  so  eager  to   exhibit. 


THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD   AND   TRAYER.         99 

Their  hearers  want  wonder  rather  than  truth, 
sign  rather  than  salvation.  If  this  was  so  be- 
cause of  the  necessary  prominence  of  miracle 
during  the  three  brief  years  of  Christ's  ministry, 
what  would  be  the  result  of  eighteen  centuries  of 
growing  frequency  in  miracle  ?.  Miracles  were 
the  needed  authorization  of  the  new  dispensation. 
And  they  lingered  awhile,  the  afterglow  of  the 
Lord's  career.  They  did  their  work.  They  are 
still  for  our  study.  But  as  they  slowly  fade  out 
before  the  better  moral  light  of  the  established 
dispensation,  we  hear  no  apostolic  voice  praying 
for  their  continuance.  Their  work  was  done,  and 
their  glorious  record  remains  to  inspire  us  to 
pray  for  blessings  now  promised. 

The  other  view  regards  miracles  not  so  much 
as  directly  evidential,  not  as  outside  evidences  of 
the  system,  but  as  an  inside  part  of  the  system  it- 
self. They  are  indeed,  incidentally,  evidences. 
They  are  proofs,  just  as  blessed  and  holy  teach- 
ings are  proofs.  They  come  at  eras,  as  the  very 
overflow  and  outcome  of  God's  manifestation  of 
grace.  They  burst  through  and  appear  in  visi- 
ble form,  as  truth  incarnate  in  fact,  as  part  and 
parcel  of  the  system.  Their  spiritual  meaning  is 
far  more  important  than  their  physical  form. 
They  are  great  moral  object-lessons.  Historical 
facts  they  are,  indeed  ;  but  they  fill  a  moral  niche. 


100   PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

Credible  deeds  they  are,  timed  to  a  moral  end. 
They  minister  not  to  credulity,  as  they  would  do 
if  promiscuous  in  character  and  timed  mainly  by 
the  will  of  praying  men.  But  they  come  in 
groups  and  are  gathered  into  eras.  They  can- 
not come  out  of  due  order.  Moses*  miracles 
cannot  change  places  with  those  of  Jesus.  The 
kind  of  ''  sign  "  befits  the  kind  of  era.  And  thus 
while  they  minister  to  faith,  they  rebuke  credu- 
lity. Studied  in  their  moral  aspect,  as  an  actual 
J^art  of  the  moral  system,  they  have  wonderful 
helpfulness  in  them.  They  mean  more  when  they 
are  past  than  when  they  were  present.  But  they 
abate  not  one  jot  from  their  evidential  power  as 
parts  of  a  system  because  their  chief  use  is  moral 
impression.  They  minister  still,  and  with  increas- 
ing force  through  the  ages,  to  the  spirit  of  prayer. 
Nor  does  this  view  discourage  prayer  for  phy- 
sical blessings.  Shall  we  pray  for  nothing  save 
the  miraculous  ?  Are  there  no  answers  save  mir- 
acles ?  True,  the  most  answers  will  come  in  that 
spiritual  realm  of  things  where  are  our  deepest 
needs  and  whence  most  prayers  arise.  But  we 
are  authorized  to  pray  in  hope  for  temporal  bless- 
ings as  they  stand  connected  with  the  spiritual 
life  and  the  Christian  work.  Mr.  Muller  has  ob- 
tained financial  answers.  Hardly  less  remarka- 
ble are  those  given  Mr.  Spurgeon  in  the  matter 


THE    KINGDOM    OF   GOD   AND    rRAYER.       lOI 

of  his  Orphan  Houses.  Hundreds  of  cases  have 
been  assembled  in  many  volumes,  like  that  of  Dr. 
Patton  on  "  Answers  to  Prayer,"  or  Whittle's 
"  Wonders  of  Prayer."  Perhaps,  however,  more 
answers  have  been  obtained  to  prayers  for  the 
cure  of  the  sick  than  for  any  other  class  of  phy- 
sical blessings.  And  this  not  because  of  miracu- 
lous healings,  nor  a  special  ministry  of  healing  for 
the  body  parallel  with  that  of  a  ministry  for  the 
soul;  but  because  the  sick  are  many  and  the  ap- 
peal to  prayer  for  them  is  constant,  and  because 
there  are  especial  promises  thereon,  which  are 
not  indeed  in  the  line  of  miracle,  but  in  that  of 
plentiful  blessing.  Dr.  Cullis,  of  Boston,  records 
in  his  published  volumes  many  cases  of  cure 
through  prayer;  and  these  cures,  never  miracu- 
lous, are  often  very  remarkable.  That  he  uses 
mental  therapeutics  on  those  who  elect  to  be 
healed  by  prayer  may  be  true.  He  instructs 
them  to  believe  themselves  cured;  and  it  is  cer- 
tain that  this  "  mental  medicine  "  in  all  diseases 
is  helpful,  and  in  some  diseases  it  is  all  that  is 
needed.  In  case  any  wish  to  try  the  therapeutic 
power  of  drugs  rather  than  mental  therapeutics, 
he  is  understood  not  to  refuse  them.  But  in 
neither  case  is  there  anything  inconsistent  with 
asking  and  receiving  God's  blessing,  in  which- 
ever one  of  the  two  methods  the  patient  may 


102       PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY    AND   A   FACT. 

elect.  Mental  and  physical  remedies  are  both 
open  to  us,  and  are  to  be  used  with  prayer.  And 
there  is  just  as  much  answer  when  God  blesses 
our  wise  means  as  when  sometimes,  in  ways  ut- 
terly beyond  our  knowledge,  he  turns  aside  the 
current  of  disease,  and  to  the  surprise  of  physi- 
cians the  patient  lives  who  they  say  ought  to 
have  died  in  the  natural  course  of  the  sickness. 

It  is  at  this  point  in  the  discussion  that  we  may 
consider  the  very  striking  words  of  the  apostle 
James  about  the  healing  of  the  sick.  The  words 
are  as  follows:  "Is  any  sick  among  you,  let  him 
call  for  the  elders  of  the  church,  and  let  them 
pray  over  him,  anointing  him  with  oil  in  the  name 
of  the  Lord ;  and  the  prayer  of  faith  shall  save 
the  sick." 

If  these  words  be  held  to  refer  to  actual  mira- 
cle, they  must  be  relegated  to  that  time  when 
*'  signs  "  of  that  sort  were  rapidly  waning  in  the 
apostolic  days.  If  miraculous,  they  belong  to 
the  introduction  of  the  Christian  era,  and  they 
were  local  in  their  application.  But,  happily,  we 
do  not  need,  by  making  them  such,  to  put  them 
so  far  away  from  our  own  times.  Is  there  neces- 
sarily anything  miraculous  in  them  ?  Read  them 
with  the  utmost  care,  and  though  they  are  pecu- 
liar, are  they  anything  more  than  a  large  promise 
of  abounding  blessing  in  given  cases  ?     There  is 


THE    KINGDOM    OF    GOD    AND    PRAYER.       I03 

an  absence  In  them  of  any  one  of  the  words  the 
New  Testament  uses  as  equivalent  to  "  miracle." 
Nor  is  the  last  clause,  *'  shall  save  the  sick,"  a 
more  positive  promise  than  many  others  from  the 
lips  of  the  Lord  and  his  apostles.  The  only 
phrase  which  suggests  anything  peculiar  is  that 
which  names  the  use  of  "  oil."  That  phrase  want- 
ing, no  one  would  have  found  in  the  verse  the 
m.iraculous  element.  Excellent  scholars  see  only 
the  medicinal  use  of  a  single  remedy.  Others 
see  here  one  remedy  naming  all  the  system  of 
medicinal  usage.  Still  others  see  in  the  presence 
of  the  elders  and  the  solemn  prayer  and  anoint- 
ing a  kind  of  mental  healing.  And  it  is  not  at 
all  improbable  that  to  drug  and  mental  thera- 
peutics there  was  also  added  the  moral  thera- 
peutic of  a  profound  religious  impression.  So 
that  when  all  these  means  for  body,  mind,  and  soul 
were  used,  and  there  was  prayer  offered  as  the 
patient  knew,  by  the  whole  church  for  him,  he 
would  be  benefited,  and  God  would  add ,  over  and 
above  all,  his  divine  favor  in  the  answer  of  an  en- 
tire cure."^     The  passage  then  would  teach  us  to 

*  In  his  "  Notes  on  the  Miracles, "  Trench,  discussing  the  bodily 
healings  wrought  by  our  Lord,  says:  "  He  links  his  power  to 
forms  in  use  among  men.  It  was  not  otherwise  when  he  bade  his 
disciples  anoint  with  oil  the  sick.  Without  the  oil — one  of  the 
most  esteemed  helps  for  healing  in  the  East — the  disciples  might 
have  found  it  too  hard   to  believe  in   the  power  which  they  were 


I04   PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

use  all  the  means,  and  fail  not  also  to  pray  in 
faith  to  God.  So  read,  the  passage  agrees  with 
that  great  class  of  Scriptural  verses  which  cover 
all  our  wants;  which  bid  us  bring  all  our  inter- 
ests, personal  and  public,  bodily  and  mental,  so- 
cial and  political,  to  our  God  in  earnest  prayer. 
"  Men  ought  always  to  pray."  "Ask  and  it  shall 
be  given  you." 

And  when  we  consider  that  sickness  of  body  Is 
so  common,  that  its  victim  comes  visibly  nearer 
to  the  end  of  his  probation,  that  it  is  of,ten  of 
immense  importance  to  God's  cause  that  a  single 
life  be  prolonged,  a  given  man  be  exempted  for  a 
time  from  death,  we  are  moved  upon  by  all  these 
considerations  to  pray  with  earnestness  and  faith 
for  healing  mercies  upon  our  sick.  There  are 
vast  numbers  of  men  now  living  who  believe  that 
along  this  line  of  prayer  they  have  had  God's 
answer. 

When  a  peculiar  era  Is  on  the  world,  and  the 
progress  of  God's  cause  demands  it,  he  has  an 
Elijah  who  can  shut  and  can  open  heaven,  as  the 
divine  will  may  be.    But  when  the  physical  shall 

exerting,  and  those  who  through  faith  were  to  be  healed,  in  the 
power  which  should  heal  them."  Edersheim,  in  his  charming 
volume  on  "  Jewish  Social  Eife  in  the  Time  of  Our  Lord,"  says, 
'  The  means  used  were  medical  or  else  sympathetic  or  even  mag- 
ical. It  was  the  custom  to  anoint  the  sick  with  a  mixture  of  oil, 
wine,  and  water."  • 


THE   KINGDOM    OF   GOD   AND    PRAYER.       1 05 

give  glad  place  to  the  spiritual  in  the  advancing 
cause,  then  the  normal  condition  of  daily  spiritual 
answers  shall  resume  its  place.  But  Elijah's 
prayer  on  Carmel  shall  be  all  the  more  instructive 
because,  instead  of  looking  for  a  descending 
altar-fire,  we  are  inspired  to  expect,  on  a  vastly 
higher  plane,  the  wonderful  manifestations  of  a 
converting  and  consecrating  Holy  Spirit,  And 
yet,  whenever  the  physical  shall  stand  in  close 
relation  to  spiritual  things,  we  will  humbly  but 
boldly  ask  for  those  temporal  things  which  lie 
clearly  within  the  range  of  our  promises.  And 
Elijah's  example  of  fervent  petition  and  God's 
answer  on  Carmel  shall  rouse  us  to  believe  that 
"  the  effectual  fervent  prayer  of  a  righteous  man 
availeth  much." 


I06   PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 


CHAPTER   VI. 

PRAYER   AS   RELATED   TO   NATURAL   LAW. 

"  How  is  prayer  answered  without  violating 
natural  law  ?  "  asks  a  friend. 

Suppose  we  are  not  able  to  give  the  method. 
Suppose  not  one  ray  of  light  had  been  cast  by  all 
the  investigations  of  six  thousand  years  on  the 
question  of  how  God  does  this  thing.  The  fact 
would  not  be  disproved  on  that  account.  We 
should  be  on  this  matter  just  where  we  are  about 
many  another  fact  of  God's  universe,  the  exist- 
ence of  which  is  plain  while  the  reason  for  it 
is  hidden.  Then,  too,  the  greatest  number  of 
answers  to  prayer  are  purely  spiritual,  are  in 
the  realm  of  the  moral  and  not  of  the  physical 
world ;  so  that  they  never  touch  the  questions  of 
material  fact  or  force. 

Nor  is  it  needful,  when  the  answers  impinge  on 
the  physical  realm,  to  think  of  them  as  neces- 
sarily ^'  special  providences,"  in  the  sense  that 
they  have  no  connection  with  that  vast  ''general 
providence  "  by  which  God  manages  the  world. 
For  we  are  not  at  liberty  to  consider  God  as  car- 


TRAYER  AS  RELATED  TO  NATURAL  LAW.      lO/ 

ing  for  some  things  and  careless  of  others.  All 
his  works  praise  him.  The  distinction  is  not  that 
some  things  are  left  to  mechanism  and  others 
handed  over  to  will  and  sovereignty.  Considered 
with  reference  to  a  special  thing  a  providence  is 
special.  It  is  God's  care  for  atoms  that  gives  him 
control  of  worlds. 

But  while  the  denial  of  prayer  because  its 
modus  operandi  is  not  understood  is  unreasona- 
ble, there  are  those  whose  faith  has  been  con- 
firmed by  many  considerations  which  thoughtful 
men  have  suggested. 

It  has  been  conceived  by  some  strong  thinkers 
that  God,  by  the  skilful  use  and  the  complete 
management  of  manifold  combinations,  can  se- 
cure answers  through  known  laws  ;  so  that  by 
manipulations  that  are  for  the  most  part  out  of 
our  sight  he  can  obtain  his  results.  Now  and 
then  the  working  of  these  laws,  in  less  obscure 
instances,  is  held  to  give  indication  of  what  is  al- 
ways going  on  just  beyond  the  line  of  our  vision. 
But  to  make  this  the  only  or  even  the  prominent 
way  of  the  divine  procedure,  is  to  take  a  me- 
chanical view  of  the  matter.  It  would  seem  to 
narrow  almost  pitifully  the  range  of  God's  work- 
ing. It  would  introduce  a  kind  of  causal  con- 
nection that  scarcely  leaves  the  divine  mind 
liberty  or  discretion.     It  shuts  him  up  as  mere 


I08   PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

manager  among  his  laws  and  forces,  and  con- 
ceives of  him  as  exercising  a  kind  of  mathemati- 
cal calculation  in  arriving  at  his  ends.  Not  with- 
out some  elements  of  truth,  this  view  is  felt  to 
be  too  narrow  to  solve  the  problem.  If  indeed 
we  were  driven  thereto,  we  might  accept  the 
theory,  with  the  added  view  that  the  Omniscient 
God  had  provided  for  all  from  the  outset;  had  so 
planned  events  as  to  secure  by  physical  means 
^  all  needed  physical  results ;  had  made  original 
arrangement  in  which  he  had  foreseen  the  volun- 
tary prayer  and  his  own  ordained  answer,  and 
had  adjusted  every  law  and  assigned  every  force 
its  due  place;  so  that  not  otherwise  than  with  in- 
finite ease  he  works  all  things  according  to  his 
will.  And  such  a  view  must  shut  the  mouth  of 
every  objector.  And  yet  we  are  not  so  much 
concerned  to  remove  difficulties  as  to  discover,  if 
possible,  something  of  the  method  or  methods 
God  takes  in  gaining  this  result.  There  are  many 
persons  who,  so  far  from  feeling  that  the  theory 
of  management  and  combination  of  laws  is  derog- 
atory to  the  Divine  Being,  see  in  that  conception 
much  that  is  honorable  to  him.  Administration 
is  genius  among  men.  To  stand  with  one's  hand 
on  the  springs  that  move  a  nation  is  kingly.  The 
old  conception  of  God  as  far  away,  looking  al- 
most disdainfully  upon  the  machine  of  the  uni- 


PRAYER  AS  RELATED  TO  NATURAL  LAW.      IO9 

verse  to  see  it  run  down,  has  gone  forever.  All 
who  believe  in  any  God  to-day  believe  in  him  as 
near.  The  idea  that  God  is  not  needed  as  one 
directly  present  amid  the  play  of  law  and  forces 
is  an  idea  disputed  by  Carpenter,  whose  words  in 
this  matter  deserve  consideration.  He  says:  '' I 
deem  it  just  as  absurd  and  illogical  to  affirm  that 
there  is  no  place  for  a  God  in  nature,  originating 
and  controlling  its  forces  by  his  will,  as  it  would 
be  to  assert  that  there  is  no  place  in  man's  body 
for  his  conscious  mind."  And  he  further  urges 
that  "  the  source  of  all  power  is  mind."  For  God 
to  be  present  and  at  work  amid  his  own  forces — 
for  all  forces  are  his — is  to  be  where  he  can  ad- 
just and  combine  them.  And  not  only  by  their 
harmony,  but  by  the  contact  and  even  the  clash- 
ing of  antagonist  forces,  he  can  secure  his  ends. 
If  in  no  other  way,  in  this  at  least,  he  is  present 

.^^  to  hear  and  answer  prayer. 
]      And  some  have  supposed  a  great  hidden  "law 

^  of  miracle,"  and  under  it  provision  for  answered 
prayer  wherever  miracle  was  needed.  And  as 
this  cannot  be  disproved,  if  necessary,  it  may  be 
assumed;  exactly  as  our  physicists  assume  the 
existence  of  the  inter-stellar  ether,  the  only  argu- 
ment for  the  existence  of  which  is  its  alleged 
necessity.  To  many,  however,  the  need  for  such 
a  "  law  of  miracles  "  is  not  apparent ;  nor  yet  the 


no       PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

need,  if  there  were  such  a  law,  of  placing  under 
it  this  matter  of  answered  prayer.  And  yet  to 
some  it  is  helpful  to  think  that  in  this,  or  in  some 
similar  way,  God  works  out  the  great  problem ; 
and  they  are  made  glad  in  the  belief  that,  either 
in  this  world  or  in  that  beyond,  our  sharper  vision 
may  at  some  distant  period  discern  the  principle 
by  which,  through  the  sweep  of  some  law  more 
vast  than  any  we  now  know,  God  hears  and 
answers  prayer,  even  when  the  answer  includes 
actual  miracle. 

And  yet  if  we  could  find  out  the  method  of 
God,  the  thing  discovered  must  be  only  second- 
ary. And  why  need  we  spend  ourselves  on  the 
question  ?  If  a  new  physical  law  is  now,  or  at  any 
coming  time  shall  be,  necessary,  it  can  certainly 
be  enacted.  For  are  we  not  speaking  of  a  God 
who  has  creative  power  ?  Bruce,  in  his  "  Miracu- 
lous Element  in  the  Gospels,"  has  well  said  :  "  We 
must  hold  ourselves  open  to  the  idea  of  a  possi- 
ble exertion  of  the  Divine  Will  in  the  direction 
either  of  creation  or  of  control,  adding  to  na- 
ture's sum  of  being  or  disposing  her  forces  to 
new  effects."  And  this  plea  for  miracle  is  equally 
a  plea  for  prayer  when  miracle  may  be  demanded 
in  its  answer.  For  say  what  we  may  about  phy- 
sical laws  and  forces,  the  spiritual  beings  in  the 
universe   are  the  greatest  factors,  and    the  way 


PRAYER  AS  RELATED  TO  NATURAL  LAW.      1 1 1 

they  are  likely  to  act  is  the  thing  of  far  the  most 
importance  in  our  present   inquiry.     Laws  wait 
always    on    executive    volition.     The    force    of 
gravity,  as  all  other  forces,  is  a  minister  in  the 
hands  of  God.     Personality  is  the  mighty  law.     It 
rules,  through   God,  all  things.     It   is  the  basis, 
when  we  have  said  our  all  concerning  ether  pos- 
sible reasons,  of  our  expectations  as  to  prayer. 
Tyndall  says,  "  It  is  a  matter  of  experience  that 
an  earthly  father  listens  to  the  requests  of  his  chil- 
dren, and  if  they  do  not  ask  amiss  takes  pleasure 
in  granting  their  requests.     We  know  that  this 
compliance  extends  to  the  alteration  within  cer- 
tain limits  of  the  current  events  of  earth.     It  is 
no  departure  from  the  scientific  method  to  place 
behind  natural  phenomena  a  Universal   Father, 
who,  in   answer  to   the   prayers  of  his   children 
alters  the  currents  of  those  phenomena."     Not 
asserting  it  to  be  proved  that  such  a  Father  is 
there,  he  admits  that  the  conception  is  according 
to  the  ''  Scientific  Method."    This  individual  voli- 
tion, this  executive  will  in  God  and  in  man,  dis- 
turbs not,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  any  existing  laws. 
If  needed,  this  could  indeed  be  done.     For  God 
is  their  superior.     Nor  does  law,  at  its  last  an- 
alysis, stand    for  anything  save  will.     Fate  and 
chance  have  no  place  in  a  universe  that  has  in  it 
a  God.     He,  as  an  idea,  excludes  all  thought  of 


112   PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

them.  Law  Is  a  constant  mode  of  divine  volition. 
We  see  it  in  his  plan.  Plan  never  works  itself. 
It  is  worked  out  by  will.  Indeed,  there  are  those 
who  conceive  of  all  *'  laws  of  nature  as  immuta- 
ble only  in  tendencies  and  not  in  results."  Law 
is  considered  as  always  trying  to  fulfil  its  tenden- 
cies. But  these  tendencies  are  always  to  be  used, 
as  far  as  may  be  by  man,  and  in  a  sovereign  way 
by  God.  The  illustration  of  the  view  is  the 
tendency  of  water  to  run  down  hill.  The  ten- 
dency is  immutable.  But  God  throws  a  mountain 
in  the  way,  and  forms  the  lake;  and  the  water 
does  not  run  down  hill.  And  man  builds  his  res- 
ervoir and  puts  in  his  pumping  machinery ;  and 
the  result  is  that  water  runs  up  hill,  its  natural 
tendency  not  destroyed,  but  other  laws  are 
brought  to  bear,  and  so  other  results  are  obtained. 
No  law  is  altered,  none  suspended.  And  this  is  a 
view  not  without  worth  as  an  answer  to  certain 
objections  urged  by  those  whose  sole  conception 
of  law  is  that  of  mechanical,  or  some  other  form 
of  physical,  force.  For  law  is  not  force,  but  is 
simply  a  mode  of  exerting  the  only  force  in  the 
universe,  the  force  of  mind.  Plan  can  be  exe- 
cuted only  by  will. 

And  this  leads  up  to  that  conception  of  the 
immanence  of  God  in  his  universe  which  is  just 
now  attracting  attention.     It  is  simply  the  reviv- 


PRAYER  AS  RELATED  TO  NATURAL  LAW.      I  13 

ing  of  an  ancient  conception,  and  its  investiture 
in  modern  garb.  It  is  true  that  this  doctrine  of 
the  divine  immanence  may  be  held  in  such  a  form 
as  to  differ  in  nothing  from  the  old  Pantheism. 
The  extreme  of  the  view  holds  men  as  '*  tid-bits 
of  God."  And  all  truth  and  error,  all  right  and 
wrong,  all  things  and  beings,  may  be  considered 
as  having  lost  their  separateness.  They  are  bub- 
bles on  the  sea  of  general  being.  Individual  ex- 
istences, at  most,  are  considered  as  rising  for  a 
moment  to  the  surface,  to  be  resolved  back  into 
a  kind  of  protoplasmic  God.  But  any  single  con- 
ception of  this  kind,  unmodified  by  related  con- 
ceptions, runs  into  extravagance.  Duly  held, 
with  its  correlative  doctrine  of  the  divine  person- 
ality, this  idea  is  not  only  helpful,  but  it  is  ex- 
planatory. It  opens  a  wide  field  of  most  inter- 
esting inquiry.  It  is  the  best  antidote  to  the 
merely  mechanical  conception  of  law  and  force, 
and  of  God  as  standing  among  them  rather  than 
working  in  them.  It  certainly  relieves  many 
minds  perplexed  about  prayer,  and  that  too  at 
some  points  where  current  views  have  failed  to 
satisfy  them.  It  is  a  view  that  accords  with 
some  very  remarkable  verses  of  the  Scripture, 
which  teach  not  only  overruling,  but  indwelling. 
Another  shall  give  us  the  doctrine.  He  says: 
"  All  the  forces  which  control  the  physical  uni- 


114       PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

verse,  all  the  feelings  which  move  in  the  moral 
and  emotional  world,  are  but  the  manifestation 
of  the  indwelling  power  of  God  ;  all  the  mysteries 
of  the  evening  heavens,  the  relations  of  the  ma- 
terial atoms  a«d  the  unending  miracles  of  organi- 
zation of  life,  are  only  the  utterance  of  the  wis- 
dom of  God.  Without  him  there  is  neither  mat- 
ter nor  force,  neither  thought  nor  feeling,  neither 
life  nor  organization.  His  presence  is  the  essen- 
tial existence  of  all  things."*  The  conception  is 
just,  but  it  must  not  stand  alone.  "  In  him  we 
live  and  move  and  have  our  being."  "  By  him  all 
things  consist."  But  it  is  exactly  as  true  that 
there  is  *'  One  God  who  is  over  all,"  as  well  as 
"  through  all  and  in  you  all."  Those  who  are 
pressing  beyond  its  due  bounds  the  doctrine  of 
the  immanence  of  God,  are  impatient  of  any 
words  which  describe  God  as  working  in  any 
other  way  than  in  his  universe.  In  their  haste  to 
make  him  immanent  they  make  him  impersonal. 
Immanence  is  only  a  part  of  the  omnipresence 
which  is  as  much  untJiont  as  within,  as  m.uch  over 
and  above  as  in  and  through,  as  actual  in  super- 
intendence as  in  indwelling.  While  avoiding  the 
one  error  of  a  too  mechanical  theory,  we  must 
equally  refrain  from  the  narrowness  which  would 
destroy  immanence  itself  by  denying  any  other 

*Roe,  in  "God  Rci":n5." 


PRAYER  AS  RELATED  TO  NATURAL  LAW.      1 15 

method  of  the  divine  presence.  We  must  hold 
firmly  to  an  actual  and  objective  universe,  itself 
separate,  in  existence,  from  the  God  who  created 
it  once  and  sustains  it  ever.  We  must  maintain 
our  belief  in  fixed  law,  in  impersonal  forces,  and 
in  personal  will.  Says  Le  Compt  in  his  ''  Evolution 
in  Relation  to  Religious  Thought :"  "  We  are  com- 
pelled to  acknowledge  an  infinite  and  immanent 
Deity  behind  phenomena,  but  manifested  to  us 
on  the  outside  as  an  all-persuasive  energy.  If 
we  could  understand  the  relation  of  physical  phe- 
nomena to  brain-changes,  then  we  might  hope  to 
understand  more  perfectly  than  now  the  relation 
of  God  to  nature.'*  In  such  utterances  there  is 
no  confusion  of  thought.  For  phenomena  are 
approachable  from  within  as  well  as  from  with- 
out. Mere  physical  science  comes  only  in  the 
latter  way.  A  broader  philosophy  must  take  in 
the  facts  of  mental  science  and  of  moral  convic- 
tion. It  must  see  that  God  stands  related  to  all 
things,  as  man  stands  related  to  some  things. 
The  soul  stands  related  to  the  body;  so  does  the 
animal  life — though  they  are  not  the  body. 
Only  we  must  be  careful  not  to  think  of  God  as 
a  mere  all-pervading  energy  like  gravitation.  For 
the  ever-present  gravitation  is  due  to  his  ever- 
present  volition.  The  conception  is  still  allowa- 
ble whereby  we  say  "  God  is  a  mathematician." 


Il6   PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

He  looks  dozvn  from  heaven,  and  we  look  up  to 
him.  But  he  is  a  "  God  afar  off  as  well  as  nigh  at 
hand."  ''  His  eyes  behold  the  children  of  men." 
And  yet  we  are  "temples  of  the  Holy  Ghost," 
and  "  God  dwelleth  in  us."  He  created,  and  he 
remains  in  his  creation.  Sustenation  is  the  suc- 
cessive throb  of  creative  energy.  When  in  prayer 
we  ask  him  to  ''  come,"  we  are  not  more  correct 
than  when  we  own  him  "  who  is  and  was."  It  is 
not  less  spiritual  to  think  of  him  as  presiding  over 
his  works,  nor  is  it  less  gross,  as  some  would  have 
it,  to  think  of  him  as  working  in  them.  Control 
is  as  essential  as  abiding.  How  grandly,  in  one 
of  his  loftiest  moments  of  poetic  insight  and  spir- 
itual feeling,  does  the  Psalmist  set  forth  his  con- 
ception alike  of  the  immanence  and  the  superin- 
tendence of  God,  in  the  one  hundred  and  thirty- 
ninth  Psalm:  "If  I  ascend  into  heaven,  thou  art 
there.  If  I  make  my  bed  in  hell,  behold  thou 

art  there."  It  is  immanence.  But  he  immedi- 
ately adds,  "  Thy  hand  shall  lead  me,  and  thy 
right  hand  shall  hold  me."  It  is  control  from 
without.  There  are  those  who  feel  the  difificulty 
of  prayer  when  they  consider  law  as  fixed  and 
universal.  Equally  would  some  be  hampered  in 
prayer  did  they  think  only  of  the  immanence  of 
God.  To  whom  pray  ?  To  self,  as  "  part  and 
parcel  of  God  ?  "     Hold  even  rehi  over  both  con- 


PRAYER  AS  RELATED  TO  NATURAL  LAW.      11/ 

captions,  let  them  draw  together,  and  prayer  can 
be  seen  both  as  inspired  of  God  and  answered  by 
him.  He  is  nearer  than  we  to  ourselves.  He  is 
sovereign  of  law,  and  its  vitality,  as  well.  God  is 
within  all,  behind  all,  before  all,  above  all.  He 
is  executive  as  well  as  legislative  and  judicial 
power.  We  have  to  ask  and  seek  and  knock  in 
prayer.  Our  mood  and  our  need  require  it.  And 
there  must  be  one  to  whom  this  mood  and  need 
is  correlated.  But  we  are  also  to  remember  that 
God  is  in  the  closet  before  we  come,  is  the  sus- 
taining energy  of  our  souls  while  we  pray,  keeps 
up  the  beating  of  the  heart  and  the  coursing  of 
the  blood  while  we  kneel,  supplies,  while  we  are 
at  the  exercise,  the  vigor  to  the  mind  as  we  think 
and  the  ardor  of  the  soul  while  we  feel.  What 
should  hinder,  then,  that  he,  while  leaving  us  free, 
should  influence  the  thought  and  the  words  and 
guide  the  petition  toward  the  answer  ?  We  are 
not  to  think  of  him  only  as  of  a  constantly  equal 
presence,  as  is  the  air,  but  he  is  a  person  who  is 
also  spiritually  nearer  or  more  remote  from  our 
souls,  who  can  "  come "  or  "  depart,"  who  can 
give  or  withhold  his  favorable  ''  presence  "  at  will. 
It  is  an  altogether  mechanical  conception  of 
the  Holy  Spirit  of  God  to  think  of  him  as  a  con- 
stant volume  of  presence,  and  of  our  wish  and 
will  as  the  only  thing  that  regulates  the  measure 


Il8       PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

actually  bestowed.  He  is  not  like  the  gas  or  the 
water  furnished  to  your  dwelling  with  just  so 
much  pressure  to  the  inch,  the  amount  received 
depending  upon  the  angle  to  which  you  turn  the 
thumb-screw  of  the  burner  or  the  faucet.  It  is 
not  the  even  pressure  of  a  constant  quantity. 
That  the  Holy  Spirit  was  historically  given  at  a 
definite  point  in  human  history  ^'  when  Pentecost 
was  fully  come,"  is  a  dispensational  truth.  Nor 
do  we  pray,  in  asking  now  for  the  Holy  Spirit, 
that  a  certain  period  promised  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment may  arrive.  In  that  sense  the  Spirit  has 
come.  But  in  the  sense  of  personal  nearness  we 
do  rightly  pray  that  he  may  come  to  men.  ''  If 
ye  then,  being  evil,  know  how  to  give  good  gifts 
unto  your  children,  how  much  more  shall  your 
heavenly  Father  give  his  Holy  Spirit  to  them 
that  ask  Him."  "God  is  a  Spirit."  A  spirit  is 
defined  as  "a  supernatural  intelligence  conceived 
of  as  apart  from  any  physical  organization." 
The  Infinite  Spirit  is  everywhere,  working  differ- 
ently as  now  he  creates  and  now  he  upholds  the 
world ;  as  here  he  frowns  on  sin  and  there  he 
smiles  on  obedience;  as  he  departs  with  his 
favor,  though  present  with  his  notice,  from  the 
guilty,  and  as  he  fulfils  to  faithful  souls  the 
promise,  "  I  will  draw  near  unto  you."  The  bear- 
ing of  these  views  on  the  question  of  prayer  as 


TRAYER  AS  RELATED  TO  NATURAL  LAWf     I  I9 

related  to  physical  law  Is  obvious.  To  many  per- 
sons, some  of  these  views  are  wonderfully  help- 
ful and  even  inspiring. 

And  yet  we  must  always  be  on  our  guard,  and 
make  a  sharp  distinction  between  the  fact  and 
our  theory  of  it.  The  fact  of  answered  prayer 
would  not  be  less  credible  if  we  were  utterly  un- 
able to  construct  even  a  proximate  theory  of 
God's  method.  We  can  have  a  working  theory, 
even  as  do  those  who  speak  of  "  gravity "  and 
"  inertia,"  which  are  assumptions  explaining  so 
many  facts  that  they  are  almost  considered  as 
proven.  What  is  called  "  chemical  law  "  is  in  the 
same  list.  And  the  so-called  "  laws  of  life  "  are 
largely  names  for  our  generalization.  We  talk 
of  the  plant  and  of  the  animal  life.  But  we  have 
as  yet  no  undisputed  definition  of  life,  and  know 
nothing  of  what  it  is  save  that  it  is.  The  fact 
does  not  depend  on  the  definition  or  on  the 
theory  of  it.  And  if  we  could  have  no  theory  at 
all  of  prayer  but  had  only  the  fact,  that  fact 
would  stand  fast  as  irrefragable.  And  yet,  to  see 
here  and  there,  as  in  other  things,  glimpses  and 
drawings  of  divine  method,  is  to  many  persons 
not  a  little  helpful  when  they  come  to  pray. 


120       PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 


CHAPTER   VII. 

NEGATIVE   ANSWERS   TO   PRAYER. 

A  FEW  years  since,  the  praying  men  and  women 
of  this  American  nation  were  on  their  knees  be- 
fore God.  The  President  of  the  United  States 
had  been  wounded  by  a  shot  fired  by  a  miscreant 
hand.  As  the  long,  hot  weeks  went  by,  the  inter- 
cession of  Christians  for  his  recovery  became 
more  and  more  earnest.  If  ever  supplication 
could  avail,  it  would  seem  to  be  when,  from 
church  and  household,  men  of  every  party  and 
every  creed  lifted  up  prayer  that  his  life  might 
be  spared.  Singularly  enough,  thousands  of  men, 
mistaking  their  eagerness  for  faith,  made  his  re- 
covery a  kind  of  prayer  test.  Looking  back  now, 
those  of  us  who  passed  through  the  trial  of  the 
weary  days  find  that  we  had  begun  to  think  that 
there  was  in  that  case  an  opportunity  for  God  to 
speak  out,  and  the  whole  nation  would  own  the 
fact  that  prayer  was  a  power.  We  fondly  hoped 
that  for  the  strengthening  of  the  godly  and  the 
confounding  of  the  scoffer,  he  would  do  this 
thing.     To  us,  the  interests  of  religion  seemed  to 


NEGATIVE   ANSWERS   TO    PRAYER.  121 

demand  that  God  should  restore  the  loved  Presi- 
dent.  But  Garfield  died;  and  the  disappointed 
men  who  had  prayed  so  long,  at  first  felt  that 
the  prayer  had  been  all  in  vain.  Time  has  given 
us  perspective;  let  us  look  and  see  whether  there 
was  lack  of  answer. 

^^   I.  God's  ''no''  is  as  really  an  answer  as  God's 
''yesr     I    deny   my    child  ;    telling  him   that   he 
cannot  have  what  he  asks.     Is  not  that  as  much 
a  reply  as  when  I  give  him  what  he  wants  ?     Is 
not  a  negative  answer  an  actual  answer?     Must 
God  always  say  "  Yes  "  ?     If  so,  we  are  the  gods 
dictating  to  him,  and  he  has  dethroned  himself 
in    our    behalf.     How    a    child    in    your    home 
shrieked  when  you  took  from  his  hand  the  razor 
^   he  had  seized;  and  how  unkind  he  thought  you 
that  you  did  not  grant  him  his  wish  to  retain  it. 
But  you  denied  him,  for  the  best  reasons.     He 
doubted  your  fatherly  heart  at  first.     But,  child 
though  he  was,  he  never  thought  that  your  denial 
of  his  wish  was  the  same  thing  as  taking  no  notice 
of  his  request.  God  must  have  room  to  say  ''  no  ;  " 
and  he  must  answer  in  that  way  a  good  many 
petitions. 

II.  In  saying  -no"  to  some  prayers  God 
answers  them  more  wisely,  not  to  say  more  fully. 
By  denying  the  prayer  of  a  nation  for  the.suffer- 
ing  President,  he  taught  us  some  truths  this  na- 


122        PRAYER    AS    A    THEORY    AND    A    FACT. 

tion  needed  to  consider.  God's  sovereignty,  as 
we  see  it  now,  would  harve  been  put  in  peril  in 
the  minds  of  thousands,  and  the  prayerfulness 
evoked  would  have  never  been  so  grand  a  moral 
exercise,  but  for  those  lingering,  weary  weeks. 

III.  We  sometimes  ask  out  of  the  line  on  which 
God  is  acting.  It  is  now  known  that  from  the 
first  the  wound  was  fatal,  and  that  an  absolute 
miracle  would  have  been  needed  to  restore  Gar- 
field to  health.  It  now  transpires  that  the  phy- 
sicians, after  the  first  ten  days,  knew  that  recov- 
ery was  impossible.  Medical  science  never  has 
recorded  an  instance  of  a  ball  piercing  that  ver- 
tebra, in  which  the  result  was  other  than  fatal. 
Tt  turns  out  now  that  we  were  praying  for  a  thing 
as  unlikely — had  we  known  what  now  we  know — 
as  if  we  had  asked  for  a  second  sun  to  rise  in  the 
east. 

But  why  did  not  God  perform  the  miracle  re- 
quired and  raise  up  the  wounded  President  ?  To 
do  so  would  have  taken  the  world  back  1800 
years,  to  the  last  great  miraculous  era,  when  God 
wrought  miracles  on  men's  bodies.  It  would 
have  been  to  turn  back  human  history  as  an  on- 
ward development  of  God's  plan  :  to  set  back  the 
world's  moral  progress  for  eighteen  centuries. 
Was  it  worth  his  while  to  do  that  thing  ?  Would 
any  man,  seeing  what  that  miracle  involved,  have 


NEGATIVE   ANSWERS   TO    PRAYER.  1 23 

had  God  do  that  thing,  even  to  save  so  precious 
a  human  Hfe  for  a  few  years  ?  The  sufferer,  had 
his  paralysis  allowed  him  to  see  all  that  it  in- 
volved, would  not  have  desired  his  life  prolonged 
at  such  a  price.  Nor  would  we,  knowing  what 
now  we  know,  though  praying  none  the  less  for 
him,  have  asked  that  impossible  thing  of  a  re- 
covery. The  ages  must  not  retrograde.  The 
kingdom  goes  forward  to  meet  the  new  class  of 
wonders  yet  to  come,  that  shall  suit  the  better 
time.  As  the  burning  bush  of  Moses  and  the  de- 
scending altar  flame  of  Elijah  were  the  fit  mira- 
cles in  their  age,  but  nothing  like  them  could 
possibly  occur  in  the  New  Testament  day,  so  in 
our  time,  these  wonders,  in  that  grade  in  which 
the  miraculous  healing  or  even  resurrection  of 
Garfield  might  have  occurred,  are  things  of  a 
past  era.  They  are  morally  needless  to-day.  It 
was  the  peculiar  stage'  of  the  kingdom  of  God 
that  made  them  needful,  credible,  possible.  They 
were  epochal,  not  in  Moses'  timic,  but  in  Christ's 
time.  In  the  one  great  epoch  that  remains,  the 
old  wonders  are  not  to  repeat  themselves.  The 
Mosaic  miracles  and  those  of  the  First  Coming 
have  each  their  specific  character.  The  Second 
Coming  is  to  be  as  distinctive.  The  eras  do  not 
repeat  themselves  in  the  evolution  of  God's 
thought. 


124       PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

IV.  Nor  was  the  praying  necessarily  uninspired 
by  the  Divine  Spirit  because  the  specific  thing 
was  not  to  be  granted.  God  wants  us  to  be  prac- 
tised in  the  using  of  our  judgment.  When  in  the 
"  first  commandment "  we  are  taught  to  "  love 
God  with  all  the  mindy'  the  use  of  our  intelligent 
nature  is  demanded.  Mentality  is  to  feed  the 
flame  of  affection.  Yet  not  a  little  of  our  men- 
tality is  wrongly  developed,  and  must  be  always 
liable  to  error.  Nevertheless,  "the  mind"  is  re- 
quired, and  it  is  ''  accepted  according  to  what  a 
man  hath  and  not  according  to  what  he  hath  not." 
And  praying  for  what,  in  its  best  judgment,  a 
praying  nation  asked,  its  prayer  was  accepted  as 
an  act  of  devotion.  Some  prayers  wait  for  years 
before  they  can  get  those  answers  which,  when 
they  come,  are  better  than  the  things  requested. 
John  saw  ''  golden  vials  filled  with  odors  which 
are  the  prayers  of  the  saints  " — the  unanswered 
petitions  accepted  as  the  requests  of  a  piety  that 
God  holds  precious.  Who  shall  say  what  of  pro- 
tection from  harm,  or  what  of  magnificent  bless- 
ing lies  waiting  in  the  treasures  of  God,  and  is 
yet  to  be  bestowed  in  answer  to  a  nation's 
prayers  ?  God  has  notched  the  calendar  of  his 
centuries,  and  keeps  mete  and  measure  of  the  ri- 
pest hours  for  the  largest  answers  of  accumulated 
blessing.     And    though,  sometimes,  before  they 


NEGATIVE   ANSWERS   TO   PRAYER.  1 25 

call  he  hears,  he  may  wait  till  a  generation  has 
gone  before  he  brings  the  promised  blessing  to 
his  Israel.  When  John  Knox  prayed  "  Give  me 
Scotland  or  I  die,"  it  was  a  prayer  that  covered 
whole  centuries;  and  answer  still  comes.  When 
Judson  had  Burmah  and  Livingstone  had  Africa 
laid  upon  them  as  a  burden,  each  praying  for  the 
country  to  which  he  gave  his  life,  the  prayer 
could  not  be  answered  in  a  day.  The  "  golden 
vial "  still  has  0^0 r,  and  the  prayer  still  rings  in 
heaven,  and  the  answer  still  comes  as  the  years 
go  by.  There  are  prayers  of  long  range,  but  the 
shot  will  strike  the  mark  at  length.  Our  prayers 
may  go  further  than  we  think,  as  they  may  mean 
more  than  we  realize  when  we  ask.  The  near 
and  specific  thing  involves  so  much  this  side  of 
the  possible  answer  that  we  think  we  are  denied, 
though  Omnipotence  may  be  waiting  on  Omnis- 
cience to  do  the  things  that  must  precede  and 
accompany  the  answer. 

V.  The  answer  has  sometimes  come  in  ways 
that  we  did  not  expect.  We  looked  for  sudden, 
almost  miraculous,  reply.  And  a  far-off  spring 
was  touched,  and  another  and  a  distant  event  oc- 
curred. We  did  not  see  at  the  time  that  the  two 
were  related,  or  that  they  had  anything  like 
answer  to  our  prayer  in  them. 

Never  was  more  earnest    petition    than  when 


126       PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

Jacob,  fugitive  from  home  through  his  own  folly, 
vowed  his  vow,  "  If  God  will  be  with  me  and  will 
keep  me  in  the  way  I  go,  and  will  give  me  bread 
to  eat  and  raim^t  to  put  on,  so  that  I  come  again 
to  my  father's  house  in  peace,  then  the  Lord 
shall  be  my  God  and  this  stone  that  I  have  set  up 
for  a  pillar  shall  be  God's  house."  Twenty  years 
had  gone  by.  Every  petition  had  been  granted. 
The  exact  things  he  had  asked  had  been  be- 
stowed. The  exile  had  found  a  home,  the  starv- 
ing one  bread,  the  hunted  man  a  relief  from  his 
furious  brother.  Back  he  had  come  to  his 
father's  house  in  peace.  Flocks  and  herds 
abounded.  Not  a  form  of  prosperity  could  be  im- 
agined that  had  not  been  given  him.  But  it  had 
all  seemed  to  come  so  naturally  that  he  had  failed 
to  mark  the  providential  hand.  Had  some  sud- 
den fortune  not  half  so  large  fallen  from  the  skies, 
that  would  have  been  an  answer  to  be  noted. 
But  flocks  increasing  year  by  year,  and  wealth 
coming  in  steadily  from  his  fields,  and  the  troops 
of  friends  always  gathering  about  him,  and  the 
prosperity  so  continuous  and  through  such  nat- 
ural avenues  of  increase,  had  seemed  to  him  a 
matter  of  course  and  not  an  answer  to  his  prayer. 
But  there  came  a  day  when  God  reminded  him 
of  his  overdue  vow.  And  then  it  all  flashed  upon 
him.     Not  a  thing  had  come,  in  all  his  fortunes, 


NEGATIVE   ANSWERS   TO    PRAYER.  12/ 

by  chance;  not  an  item  of  his  wondrously 
changed  circumstances  but  had  been  ordered  by 
his  God.  And  he  woke  to  see  that  this  was  an- 
swered prayer.  He  hastens  to  Bethel  to  fulfil 
his  solemn  promise,  and  at  every  step  he  recalls 
the  fact  that  God  has  signally  blessed  his  ways. 
From  another  quarter  than  he  had  expected,  the 
deliverance  came.  He  had  limited  God ;  had 
fixed  on  the  spot  in  the  heavens  which  must  be 
parted  ;  but  God  had  sent  answers  from  the  other 
side  of  the  sky.  How  much  that  man  lost 
by  not  watching  for  the  mercies  that  had  been 
falling  on  his  path  during  every  day  of  those 
prosperous  years!  How  much  more  gladness, 
had  he  not  mistaken  nature  for  providence,  or, 
rather,  had  he  not  forgotten  that  Providence 
uses  nature  in  the  answers  of  prayer  !  He  had 
had  for  years  that  for  which  he  was  daily  pray- 
ing, and  did  not  know  it.  And  the  answer  he 
held  to  be  negative  was  such  only  in  his  own 
failure  to  recognize  its  positive  character  and  its 
gracious  abundance.  Perhaps  it  were  neither  un- 
just nor  uncharitable  to  aflfirm  that  much  which 
goes  under  the  name  of  prayer  is  not  prayer  at 
all.  A  prayer  of  Sir  Samuel  Romelly  is  on  rec- 
ord, as  follows:  "Almighty  God.  Creator  of  all 
things.  Source  of  all  wisdom,  goodness,  and 
virtue,  and  happiness,  I  bow  down  before  Thee — ■ 


128   PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

not  to  offer  up  prayers,  for  I  dare  not  presume 
to  think  or  hope  that  thy  most  just,  unerring,  and 
supreme  will  can  in  any  degree  be  influenced  by 
any  supplication  of  mine;  nor  to  pour  forth 
praises  and  adorations,  for  I  feel  that  I  am  un- 
worthy  to  offer  them  ;  but  in  all  humility  and  with 
a  deep  sense  of  my  own  insignificance  to  express 
the  thanks  of  a  happy  and  contented  being  for 
the  innumerable  benefits  which  he  enjoys.  .  .  . 
I  cannot  reflect  on  these  things  and  not  express 
my  gratitude  to  Thee,  O  God,  from  whom  all  this 
good  has  flowed."  The  prayer  from  which  this  is 
taken  is,  every  sentence  of  it,  in  exactly  the  tone  of 
that  here  quoted.  And  the  question  occurs  at 
once,  ''  Is  this  prayer  ?  "  The  author  of  it  says 
that  he  does  "  not  offer  up  prayers."  What  then 
does  he  do  ?  He  recounts  blessings,  and  says  he 
'*  expresses  thanks,"  but  immediately  adds  that 
he  does  not  pray '' to  pour  forth  praises."  He 
uses  humble  words,  calls  himself  *'  unworthy,"  and 
calls  God  "source  of  all  virtue  and  wisdom  and 
happiness,"  and  yet  says  he  "does  not  pour  forth 
adorations."  Again  we  ask,  what  does  he  do? 
The  prayer  asks  nothing;  not  even  its  own  ac- 
ceptance as  a  prayer.  It  is  simply  an  "  expres- 
sion," as  he  himself  calls  it.  It  is  an  utterance  of 
self-relief,  an  expression  of  gratitude  that  does 
not  even  ask  permission  to  "  offer  praises  "  to  the 


NEGATIVE   ANSWERS   TO   PRAYER.  1 29 

One  from  whom  these  things  that  stir  the  heart 
do  come.  Its  drift  is  toward  thankfulness.  But 
it  insists  upon  not  offering  "praises."  Yet  why 
a  man  should  deprecate  "  praises  "  and  then  "  ex- 
press thankfulness,"  except  in  hope  that  God 
would  hear  the  expression  of  it,  one  cannot  well 
see.  If  God  can  hear  the  thankfulness,  then  he 
can  hear  the  ''adorations,"  also  the  ''prayers," 
also  the  "  praises  " — certainly  the  one  as  well  as 
the  other.  The  prayer  looks  like  a  studied  at- 
^  tempt  to  do  the  thing  and  yet  not  to  do  it;  to  at- 
tempt to  give  vent  to  a  natural  impulse  of  fitness 
and  gratitude;  but  the  good  impulse  is  beaten 
back  by  the  bad  theory,  which  is  most  inconsist- 
ently applied.  He  is  uttering  a  monologue, 
which,  though  addressed  to  God,  ought  not  to 
be,  on  his  wrong  theory  of  prayer.  It  will  not 
be  unjust,  if  we  take  the  genial  man  at  his  word, 
and  decline  to  call  his  "vocal  musings"  by  the 
name  of  prayer.  Let  us  hope,  however,  that  in- 
consistent enough  to  address  a  prayer  to  "Al- 
mighty God,"  which  he  calls  "  not  the  offering  of 
prayer,"  his  heart  got  the  better  of  his  mistaken 
theory  in  the  end,  and  that  he  came  to  God  at 
length  in  prayer  and  praise  and  petition,  all  of 
them  sweetened  with  his  humility  and  gratitude. 
VI.  So,  too,  prayer  may  not  yet,»in  a  given 
case,  have  got  on  beyond  that  general  sense  of 
9 


\ 


130       PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

fitness    and    proper    respectfulness    in   which    so 
many  stop.    Men  say  "  I  hope  and  pray  "  that  this 
or  that   may    be  granted.     Some   use  words   of 
opening  and  closing  prayer  much  as  one  would 
write  "  Dear   Sir  "  at    the   opening,-and  "Yours 
truly"  at  the  close  of  a  letter.     The  invocation 
and     the  closing    ascription    are    the  customary 
and  decorous  forms,  to   be  as  carefully  employed 
as   is   any  other   formula   of  good   breeding  and 
polite   address.      We  would  not   have   men   less 
careful    for  proper  forms   in  which   to   open   or 
close  their  prayers,  especially  when  leading  the 
devotion  of  others.     But  the  devotional  is  more 
than  the  decorous,  and  prayer  is  more  than  the 
direction  of  an  epistle.    And  there  miist  be  some- 
thing between  the  opening  words  and  the  conclu- 
sion.    The  petition  should  not  be  omitted  from 
the  prayer.     What  w^ould  be  thought  of  a  peti- 
tion that  petitions  for  nothing  ?    He  who  addresses 
a  letter  ''  To  the  President,  Executive  Mansion," 
and  signs  his  name  to  the  letter  at  the  close,  but 
inserts  nothing  of  moment  between,  is  a  trifler. 
He  cannot  be  said  to  ask  anything  of  the  Presi- 
dent.    Blank  petition  is  next  kin  to  blank  prayer. 
Forms  are  well,  though  many  a  petition  that  was 
not  in  due  form  has  received  consideration  from 
the  Executive  of  the  Nation.     Even  if  a  man  who 
contents   himself  with  a  few  moments  of  such 


NEGATIVE   ANSWERS   TO   PRAYER.  I3I 

prayer  morning  and  evening,  may  satisfy  thereby 
an  easy  conscience,  he  cannot  hope  to  obtain  an 
actual  answer  to  a  petitionless  prayer.  One 
should  not  indeed  fail  to  "  enter  the  closet,"  as 
the  Lord  commanded;  but  we  should  fill  up  the 
form  with  the  fit  words  from  an  earnest  heart. 
John  Quincy  Adams  could  say  that  never  had 
he  laid  down  at  night  without  repeating  the 
child's  prayer  his  mother  taught  him,  ''  Now  I  lay 
me  down  to  sleep."  Hundreds  repeat  regularly, 
at  the  bedside  every  night,  the  Lord's  Prayer. 
Better  the  form  of  words  than  nothing.  For,  by- 
and-by,  when  there  are  inward  movings  toward 
real  prayer,  the  strangeness  felt  by  those  who 
never  kneel  before  their  Maker  will  not  be  ex- 
perienced. Accustomed  to  use  the  language, 
they  will  not  be  affrighted  at  the  exercise.  And 
then,  too,  the  form  of  fit  words  may  catch  and 
grapple  with  the  genuine  feeling,  and  the  body  of 
the  prayer  come  to  throb  with  actual  life. 

It  must  be  confessed  also  that  some  good  men, 
afraid  of  forms,  allow  to  themselves  a  kind  of 
rambling  in  prayer  which  they  would  never  em- 
ploy elsewhere.  Word  suggests  word,  and  the 
prayer  is  without  form  and  void.  An  address  to 
man,  as  inconsequential,  as  incoherent,  would  be 
absurd.  Such  a  prayer  written  out  would  amaze 
the  man  who  offers  it.    A  letter  to  a  friend  would 


132   TRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

have  at  least  some  general  order.  A  conversa- 
tion in  a  parlor  or  by  the  wayside,  would  have 
some  one  theme  pursued  to  its  close  before  an- 
other topic  was  named.  Shall  we  permit  our- 
selves, in  this  miscellaneous  address  to  God, 
rambling  repetitions,  sentences  without  connec- 
tion, words  used  because  we  have  heard  them  em- 
ployed statedly  in  family  or  public  prayer,  with 
pauses  in  which  one  stops  to  think  what  next  is 
to  be  said  and  fills  up  the  gap  by  using  some  one 
of  the  many  names  of  God, — are  these  the 
prayers  that  can  claim  answers  ?  Persons  unused 
to  the  exercise  are  not  indeed  to  be  criticised 
unduly.  The  heart  may  be  full  when  the  vocab- 
ulary is  scant.  And  a  young  Christian  is  to  be 
encouraged  to  pray  with  others  as  well  as  in  the 
closet.  But  when  years  have  gone  by,  a  Chris- 
tian, leading  the  devotions  of  his  brethren,  should 
school  himself  to  orderliness  and  method  and 
precision  in  prayer.  Why  not  a  Christian  min- 
ister as  careful  about  the  public  extem.poraneous 
prayer  as  about  his  sermon  ?  Why  not  a  solemn 
recalling,  before  a  word  is  uttered,  of  the  theme, 
the  material,  the  adoration,  the  petition  of  his 
prayer?  For  what  is  he  to  ask  ?  If  for  more 
things  than  one,  let  him  seek  that  they  have 
orderly  presentation,  not  only  for  his  own  mental 
and  moral  helpfulness  in  the  exercise,  but  that 


NEGATIVE   ANSWERS   TO   PRAYER.  1 33 

his  hearers  may  follow  the  order  of  his  thought 
without  distraction  to  their  devotion.  And, 
above  all,  the  God  to  whom  he  speaks  Is  the  God 
of  order.  God  knows  and  accepts  us  in  our  act 
of  seeking  out  fit  words,  and  mental  as  well  as 
moral  orderliness  of  thought  and  feeling,  when 
we  approach  Him.  For  prayer  Is  not  a  spasm  of  / 
excited  feeling  that  is  careless  of  all  words, — ex- 
cept Indeed  under  those  sudden  occurrences  when 
there  Is  no  time  for  thought.  Then  the  cry  of 
agony,  or  the  appeal  for  help,  bursts  forth. 
"  Lord  save  or  I  perish  "  Is  the  cry  of  the  sinking 
disciple.  But  the  prayer  of  the  closet,  of  the 
household  or  the  sanctuary,  is  to  be  thoughtful  as 
well  as  earnest,  careful  as  well  as  devout,  orderly 
as  well  as  hearty.  There  is  to  be  simplicity 
rather  than  that  incoherence  and  overflow  of 
stilted  phrase  sometimes  heard.  We  are  not  to 
fling  separate  sentences  at  God  as  men  discharge 
missiles  into  the  air.  And  we  cannot  wonder 
that  such  petitions,  so  aimless  and  scattering,  do 
'  not  bring  answers.  When  the  man  is  more  in 
earnest  the  prayer  will  be  direct  and  specific: 
and  then  the  suppliant  may  find  that  the  answers 
Avhich  had  seemed  to  be  denied  are  really  be- 
stowed, and  the  apparent  refusal  Is  reversed. 

And  the  prayer  may  wait  an  answer  until  it  be- 
comes a  genuinely  Christian  prayer.     Prayer  in 


-w' 


134       PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

the  case  of  a  man  who  has  known  little  about 
Christ  may  be  accepted.  Many  a  devout  Jew 
has  been  so  situated  in  life  that  the  proof  of 
Christ  as  the  Messiah  has  never  come  fairly  be- 
fore him.  In  such  cases  acceptance  may  have  been 
had  through  the  Christ  who  was  unrevealed  to  the 
soul.  Says  another,  "  The  northern  Aurora  lights 
our  midnight  skies  with  scintillations  emanating 
from  magnetic  vortices  whose  locality  is  unknown 
to  us.  So  we  can  conceive  of  faith  in  a  mercy 
without  a  known  atonement  and  prayer  without 
a  revealed  Saviour,  as  looming  up  in  the  radiant 
twilight  to  the  eye  of  a  heathen  seer,  because  of 
the  secret  history  of  such  prayer  in  its  movement 
among  the  mediatorial  councils  of  God."  (Phelps* 
'*  Still  Hour.")  But  for  men  of  intelligence,  liv- 
ing in  this  nineteenth  Christian  century,  prayer 
that  omits  to  take  Christ  as  the  way  of  access  to 
God  can  only  do  so  in  express  neglect  of  his  own 
words,  *'  No  man  cometh  to  the  Father  but  by 
me."  Prayer  has  one  avenue  to  the  heart  and 
heaven  of  God.  Not  now  to  discuss  the  relation 
of  atonement  to  prayer,  it  may  suffice  to  say  that 
if  the  original  right  to  pray  is  gone  through  sin, 
and  if  the  original  instinct  of  prayer  is  beaten 
back  and  overpowered  by  the  stronger  heart,  the 
*'  new  and  living  way"  of  access  is  the  permitted, 
if  not  the  necessary  way.     To  refuse  it  would  be 


NEGATIVE   ANSWERS   TO   PRAYER,  1 35 

a  slight  and  an  offence.  A  guilty  conscience 
craves  a  way  for  acceptance  before  an  offended 
God  ;  a  weak  soul  craves  another's  strength,  an 
overpowering  sense  of  one's  unworthiness  craves 
some  other  name  that  is  worthy,  as  a  plea.  '*  Of 
what  are  you  thinking;  for  you  seem  lost  in 
thought,  this  morning  ?  "  "I  was  thinking,"  said 
the  carter  to  the  merchant  who  had  spoken  so 
kindly  to  him,  "  that  if  I  was  only  able,  I  would 
buy  that  cargo,"  pointing  to  a  vessel  just  ready 
to  discharge  her  freight.  "  What  would  you  do 
with  it  ?  "  "  Sell  it  for  enough  advance  to  clear 
off  the  mortgage  on  my  little  home."  "  Go  and 
bid  it  off."  ''  But  they  won't  listen  to  my  bid." 
**  Tell  them  you  bid  in  my  name,  and  here  is  a 
check  to  bind  the  bargain."  At  first  as  he  bid, 
no  notice  was  taken  of  him.  Ey-and-by,  he  made 
a  bid,  and  shouted  loud  enough  for  all  to  hear, 

"  I  bid  in  the  name  of ;  "  and  he  mentioned 

the  name  of  the  great  merchant.  It  was  enough. 
The  cargo  was  his.  So  we  are  permitted  to  come 
"  in  his  name."  It  is  a  Christian  privilege  to 
name  a  name  always  heard  by  the  Father.  If 
nature  shuts  the  door,  grace  in  Jesus  Christ  opens 
it  anew  with  a  plea  never  refused.  The  Christian 
theory  of  prayer  is  perfect,  and  the  Christian 
practice  of  it  is  warranted.  And  yet  a  man  whose 
creed  is  right,  may  have   overlooked  in  feeling, 


136   PRAYER  AS.  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

and  omitted  in  practice,  the  privilege  of  asking 
''  in  Christ's  name."  And  the  answer  may  be 
withheld  until,  presenting  in  our  faith  the  great 
plea,  we  gain,  through  Christ,  a  Christian  accept- 
ance. 

And  the  deferred  answer  may  be  connected 
with  our  failure  to  take  in  the  related  truths  in- 
volved in  prayer.  If  Cicero  might  say  that  there 
is  no  knowledge  that  is  not  of  use  to  the  orator, 
then  we  may  say  also,  that  there  is  no  knowledge 
of  religious  truth  that  is  not  of  use  to  the  pray- 
ing man.  And  God  may  hold  ofT  the  response 
until  we  take  up  the  truth  that  is  unused  and  yet 
so  near  at  hand.  If  the  Bible  is  the  World's 
Prayer  Book,  not  only  in  its  formulas  and  exam- 
ples, but  also  in  its  promises  and  in  the  truths  it 
gives  us,  all  of  which  minister  to  our  devotion, 
then  can  God  do  a  more  kindly  service  than  by 
refraining  to  give  what  we  ask,  until  we  make 
use  of  his  Word  in  securing  what  may  be  called 
the  material  of  prayer  ?  He  may  wish  to  incite 
diligence  in  discovering  truth.  Made  to  wait, 
we  may  be  led  to  ask  why  the  answer  delays,  and 
so  may  come  to  seek  in  the  Scriptures  the  larger 
truth. 

And  when  one  more  thing  is  added,  the  series 
of  reasons  for  deferred  answer  may  be  deemed 
sufBciently  long.     "Ye  ask  and  receive  not,  be- 


NEGATIVE   ANSWERS   TO   PRAYER.  1 37 

cause  ye  ask  amiss."  The  remissness  named  by 
the  apostle  is  lack  of  spiritual  desire.  The  prayer 
must  wait  for  its  answer  until  some  wrong  is 
taken  out  of  the  way.  The  wrong  feeling  toward 
a  brother  man,  the  quarrel  the  bitterness  of 
which  remains,  the  transaction  which  we  are  not 
willing  to  review  calmly  because  afraid  we  may 
have  to  say  that  there  is  sin  in  it,  the  plea  where- 
by we  justify  conformity  to  the  world — are  all  to 
be  considered  when  we  stand  waiting  for  the 
answer  that  does  not  come.  We  are  made  to  ask 
whether  the  cause  is  not  in  something  we  have 
done  or  not  done.  It  will  not  take  a  large  sin. 
A  small  bit  of  iron  will  disturb  the  magnetic 
needle.  A  small  grain  of  sand  will  grate  harshly 
in  the  delicate  mechanism  of  the  eye.  The  sin 
may  be  one  so  long  petted  and  excused  that  we 
hardly  see  it  as  a  sin  at  all.  It  may  have  woven 
itself  into  all  the  fabric  of  our  social,  and  our 
business,  and  even  our  religious,  life.  A  praying 
man,  finding  "  dryness  in  prayer,"  should  stop 
and  ask  for  the  reason.  It  will  not  do  to  say 
that  one  cannot  always  expect  to  feel  in  the  same 
mood  in  religious  exercises;  nor  to  attribute 
one's  weakness  in  prayer  to  God's  arbitrary 
"  shutting  up  of  the  heavens."  It  were  better  to 
reserve  those  for  final  reasons,  if  after  having  ex- 
amined   ourselves   honestly   there    is    found   no 


138       PRAYER  AS   A  THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

reason  within  our  own  souls,  or  in  the  practices 
of  our  own  lives.     As  Faber  sings, 

"  Oh,  for  the  times  when  on  my  heart 
Long  prayer  hath  never  palled  ; 
Times  when  the  ready  thought  of  God 
Would  come  when  it  was  called, 

*'  What  can  have  locked  these  fountains  up. 
Those  visures  what  hath  stayed, 
What  sudden  act  hath  thus  transformed 
My  sunshine  into  shade  ? 

"  One  thing  alone,  dear  Lord,  I  dread  : 
To  have  a  secret  spot 
That  separates  my  soul  from  Thee, 
And  yet  to  know  it  not. 

*'  If  it  hath  been  a  sin  of  mine, 
Then  show  that  sin  tome. 
Not  to  get  back  that  sweetness  lost, 
But  to  make  peace  with  Thee." 

Baffled  in  life,  prayer  returning  with  shorn  wings 
to  the  place  whence  it  began,  access  denied,  com- 
fort departed,  the  man  is  thrown  back  upon  in- 
quiry. And  there  may  come  to  him  the  words 
'*  if  I  regard  iniquity  in  my  heart  the  Lord  will 
not  hear  me."  The  sin  put  away,  the  prayer  can 
proceed.  And  the  number  of  instances  in  which 
this  experience  of  delay  has  been  of  use  to  a  man, 
almost  justifies  the  paradox  of  saying  that  the 
delayed  answer  is  the  quickest  possible  response 
of  God. 

Is  it  then  so  hard   to  get  answers  ?     By  no 


NEGATIVE   ANSWERS    TO    PRAYER.  139 

means.  What  one  thing  now  named  as  a  wrong, 
would  we  have  God  overlook  ?  To  the  simple 
sincere  soul,  putting  away  sin  and  seeking  all 
righteousness,  willing  to  serve  and  busy  in  all 
duty,  is  prayer  hard  ?  Is  there  the  forbidding 
bar  ?  No,  no,  cry  thousands.  The  way  is  opened 
into  the  Holy  Place.  They  have  fellowship,  in 
prayer,  with  God.  And  some  of  them  who  spoke 
once  of  answers  withheld,  now  bear  witness  that 
deferred  answer  is  not  denied  prayer. 


I40       PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A    FACT. 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

REACTIONS  LEADING  TO  PRAYER. 

Promise  is  not  always  and  only  verbal.  When 
the  storms  of  a  dreary  winter  have  spent  them- 
selves, men  are  wont  to  find  in  the  softer  airs  of 
spring  as  they  sweep  over  the  earth,  the  promise 
of  better  things. 

"  Spring's  real  glory  lies  not  in  the  meaning, 
Gracious  though  it  be,  of  her  blue  hours  ; 
But  it  is  hidden  in  her  tender  leaning 
To  summer's  richer  wealth  of  flowers." 

Promise  is  sometimes  given  to  meet  the  instinc- 
tive reaction  from  unbelief,  mistrust,  and  des- 
pondency. There  are  hours  of  depression,  in 
which  Shakespeare  can  write  no  play  and  Milton 
no  poem.  Into  every  life  there  come  rainy  days. 
Things  go  wrong.  The  world  drifts  and  the 
skies  are  far  off.  It  is  even  worse  when,  through 
erroneous  views  of  life  and  destiny,  a  man  loses 
hope.  How  easy  then  to  misread  all  history  ! 
Herod  wears  the  purple  and  Christ  hangs  on  a 
cross.  The  pendulum  stays  on  the  other  side  of 
the  arc.       Nothing  is  sure  but  ill,  and  that  is  not 


REACTIONS   LEADING  TO   PRAYER.  I4I 

an  absolute  certainty.  There  is  no  faith,  but 
only  dead  negation  ;  and  the  hands  made  to  reach 
out  to  others  and  to  be  open  upward  to  God, 
hang  listlessly  at  one's  side.  If  this  continues 
life  is  not  worth  living.  Pessimism  is  death  to 
hopeful  view  and  earnest  action.  And  God  lets 
sometimes  a  man  and  sometimes  an  age  work  its 
way  by  storm  into  the  smoother  seas  beyond. 
Only  by  reaction  can  some  men  and  some  cen- 
turies be  reformed.  For  men,  seeing  where  hope- 
lessness leads  them,  start  back.  The  lightning 
flash  does  not  create,  it  only  discloses  the  danger. 
In  those  reactionary  moments  a  life  without  posi- 
tive faith  is  seen  as  a  mistake,  and  men  rouse 
themselves  to  ask  whether  there  is  not  some- 
where a  promise  to  which  hope  can  attach  itself; 
something  positive,  instead  of  those  old  nega- 
tions. For  we  men  are  made  to  believe.  Doubt 
is  left-handed  and  goes  off  in  wrong  ways.  The 
capacity  for  faith  has  its  correlative  in  truth  on 
which  faith  can  rest.  No  man,  no  age  ever  made 
progresses  by  doubt,  except  as  doubt  led  to  the 
reaction  of  faith.  Doubt  never  made  a  discov- 
ery of  worth  to  the  world.  Never  by  doubt  was 
the  domain  of  knowledge  widened  by  a  hair's 
breadth.  God  gave  us,  as  our  greatest  capacity, 
the  power  of  believing  on  testimony.  It  is  not 
what  we  are  in  capacity  of  natural  powers  that 


142       PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

forms  the  limit  of  either  our  efficiency  or  our  re- 
sponsibility. It  is  our  power  of  going  out  of  self 
and  receiving  alike  knowledge  and  potency  from 
God — in  one  word,  our  aptitude  for  faith — that 
gives  us  our  dignity  as  men.  It  is  not  so  much 
what  we  have  as  what  we  borrow  when  the  lender 
is  God,  that  makes  us  of  worth  as  men.  The 
foot,  made  to  *'  go,"  as  if  we  were  not  where  we 
should  be — made  to  go  to  another — is  a  typical 
fact.  And  equally  so,  the  hand,  made  to  be  up- 
lifted and  reached  out,  as  if  it  had  not  what  it 
wanted,  and  must  take  it  as  a  descending  gift 
from  God  above  us — our  hand  receiving  from  His 
hand — is,  equally,  a  typical  fact.  We  must  en- 
large our  schedule  of  man's  powers,  and  add  to 
his  power  of  reasoning  and  to  his  power  of  im- 
agining, the  power  of  believing.  We  have  been 
prosecuting,  as  an  age,  our  religious  inquiries 
mainly  by  reason.  We  must  see  our  mistake  in 
the  resulting  disquietude.  And  as  clearly  must 
we  see  that  our  success  will  come  along  the  line 
of  faith — a  mightier  force,  as  toward  God,  than 
reason. 

God  leads  sometimes  by  reactions.  It  is  to  be 
noticed  that  a  reaction  has  begun  from  the  ag- 
nosticism so  prevalent  a  few  years  since.  No- 
where, except  in  the  semireligious  speculations 
of  a  limited  class  of  scientists,  does  the  agnostic 


REACTIONS    LEADING  TO   PRAYER.  I43 

creed  "  we  do  not  know,"  have  any  place.  It  is 
the  boast  of  the  century  that  we  do  know,  so 
positively,  and  about  so  many  things.  Why  in 
one  department  alone  so  reluctant  to  be  positive  ? 
Why  not,  as  men  are  shouting  out  their  joy  over 
scientific  truth — not  indeed  seen  to  be  absolutely 
demonstrated  in  nature,  but  only  shown  to  be 
necessary — why  not  the  same  exultation  here  ? 
The  atomic  theory,  the  nebular  theory  of  the 
worlds,  the  theory  of  an  interstellar  ether,  the 
principle  of  gravitation,  are  all  inferential.  No 
man  dares  say  they  are  proven.  Yet  no  man 
says  before  them  the  agnostic  words  "  we  do  not 
know,"  or  the  pessimistic  words  *' we  cannot 
know,"  and  "  it  is  all  in  vain  to  know,  even  if  we 
could."  We  have  had  the  phrases  *'  Inscrutable 
Power,"  *'  Power  that  makes  for  righteousness," 
"  Unknowable  Power  "  and  others  of  like  import. 
Is  it  not  strange  that  the  word  "  God  "  is  avoided, 
and  that,  too,  when  Tyndall  says  it  is  *'  scientific 
method  to  place  behind  natural  phenomena  a 
Universal  Father  "  ?  But  the  reaction  from  all 
this  is  making  itself  felt.  Frederic  Harrison, 
not  indeed  in  the  interests  of  Christianity,  as  yet, 
but  in  that  of  fair  thought,  insists  that  the  nega- 
tion of  religion  in  scientific  statement  is  unwise, 
and  is  unphilosophical  as  well.  He  says  "the 
net  result  of  the  whole  negative  attack  on   the 


144       PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

Gospel  has  perhaps  been  to  deepen  the  moral 
hold  of  Christianity  on  society."  He  claims  that 
''  men  turn  from  this  negative  attack  with  weari- 
ness and  disgust."  He  insists  that  the  phrase 
used  by  Mr.  Spencer  is  "  obviously  only  the  flour- 
ish of  a  man  who  has  nothing  to  say  and  who 
wishes  to  say  something."  Mr.  Harrison's  so- 
called  "  worship  of  humanity  "  is  far  enough  from 
the  full  demand  of  his  own  premises,  but  to  wor- 
sJiip  sometJimg  is  better  than  nothing.  He  insists 
that  the  agnostics  must  contrive  some  kind  of 
faith,  the  pessimists  get  hold  of  some  sort  of 
hope,  or  retire  from  an  attempt  to  lead  the 
thought  of  the  ages.  The  great  human  heart  is 
in  earnest.  The  trifling,  scoffing,  contemptuous 
mood  has  had  its  day.  Religion  is  no  more  to  be 
pitied.  It,  in  turn,  has  pity  to  give  to  men  whose 
cherishing  of  agnostic  tendencies  is  coming  to  be 
seen,  even  by  themselves,  as  mistaken  leadership 
in  an  age,  on  the  banners  of  which,  in  every  army, 
alike  of  philosophic  thought  and  religious  insight, 
are  inscribed  the  words,  "  this  is  the  victory  that 
overcomcth — even  your  faith." 

When  it  is  once  recognized,  as  it  is  sure  to  be, 
that  faith  is  an  instrument  of  human  progress 
liaving  its  place  beside  reason,  then  pessimism 
will  be  dethroned  and  agnosticism  be  no  longer 
the    strange    boast    of    men    who    exalt    human 


REACTIONS  LEADING  TO  PRAYER.     1 45 

knowledge.  It  will  be  seen  that  as  the  most  of 
our  alleged  laws  and  forces  of  nature  are  not 
quite  logically  proven,  but  are  believed  in  be- 
cause it  is  logically  necessary  to  hold  to  them,  so 
in  religion,  when  reason  has  done  her  utmost, 
there  is  room  for  believing  in  what  a  moral 
necessity  compels  us  to  insist  upon  as  truth. 
Then  comes  the  question  of  "  to  what  staple  the 
last  link  of  this  chain  is  fastened."  Intellectual 
and  moral  necessity  require  a  God  and  an  immor- 
tality. Made  to  believe,  there  is  some  one  to  be 
believed.  The  one  to  be  believed  must  have  ut- 
tered some  word  of  promise.  Hence  that  name 
*'  the  Word."  He  is  the  incarnate  Promise.  We 
are  made  to  trust,  and  he  is  the  one  to  be  trusted. 
He  who  made  all  the  links  of  the  chain  has  fast- 
ened it  to  the  staple. 

Here  come  into  the  discussion  the  manifold 
verbal  promises  of  the  Bible.  Had  we  but  one 
of  them  it  were  an  inestimable  treasure.  What 
of  the  "  unsearchable  riches  "  ?  What  of  promises 
for  every  hour  and  every  occasion  ?  Quoting 
is  impossible.  The  whole  volume  is  fitly  called 
"  the  Word  of  Promise."  It  is  one  great  appeal  to 
men,  who  in  view  of  it  "  ought  always  to  pray." 

Is  there  coming  a  reaction  in  which  the  thought 
of  the  age  shall  not  only  recognize  the  Father,  but 
shall  be  also  prayerful?     It  is  instructive  to  note 

lO 


146       TRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A  FACT. 

God's  methods  in  the  past.  A  fact  or  doctrine 
in  religion  had  fallen  into  desuetude.  By  a  kind 
of  moral  reaction  God  has  brought  it  forward 
again,  and  it  has  been  so  thoroughly  fixed  in  the 
Christian  "consciousness  that  it  can  never  wane  in 
its  brightness.  Such  was  the  case  with  the  doc- 
trine of  "  Justification  by  Faith  "  which  had  fallen 
into  the  background.  There  came  a  mighty  re- 
action. For  men's  hearts  needed  an  assurance 
as  to  their  spiritual  standing;  and  to  wait  for 
justification  until  the  close  of  life  or  until  the 
final  judgment,  was  to  consign  men  to  a  kind  of 
spiritual  bondage  that  ministered  always  to  fear. 
The  reaction  changed  all  this;  and  micn  took  in 
the  fact  that  when  we  believe  we  are  com.pletely 
justified.  The  great  truth  filled  Germany  with 
song,  and  all  northern  Europe  added  its  voice 
to  the  swelling  chorus  that  welcomed  the  era  of 
a  believing  Church.  So,  too,  afterward,  when 
religion  had  become  a  formality  in  England, 
there  came  the  reaction,  under  the  lead  of  Whit- 
field and  Wesley;  and  religion  as  a  personal  ex- 
perience stood  forth  before  the  world.  It  was 
claimed  that  a  man  should  know  that  he  had 
"  passed  from  death  to  life,"  and  the  inward  "  wit- 
ness of  the  Spirit"  was  declared  to  be  the  privi- 
lege of  every  believer.  It  was  the  era  of  experi- 
mental religion.     It  has  been  claimed  that  there 


REACTIONS   LEADING   TO   PRAYER.  I47 

has  been  likewise  a  missionary  era;  God  bringing 
in  upon  men  a  new  sense  of  responsibility  to  give 
the  Gospel  to  the  world.  Is  there  to  come  also 
2i  praying  era  ?  Is  it  to  dawn  on  men  that  pray- 
ing for  men  is  as  much  a  duty  as  the  giving  of 
money  for  their  necessities;  that  the  other  phil- 
anthropies that  dignify  and  adorn  our  century  are 
to  have  an  addition  to  their  force  and  number, 
by  a  newly  used  instrumentality,  that  of  prayer  ? 
For,  a  force  at  all,  it  must  be  of  no  mean  rank 
among  those  whereby  men  are  to  be  moved  for 
the  better.  Praying  for  men  is  equally  a  duty 
with  the  setting  before  them  an  example  of  hon- 
esty, sobriety,  and  of  every  religious  virtue. 
Praying  for  men  is  a  debt  due  them,  to  be  paid 
like  any  other  obligation.  And  when  one  reads 
the  glowing  words  of  the  grand  old  trumpet- 
tongued  prophets,  about  prayer  being  made 
among  all  nations,  when  one  hears  them  declare 
that  God  will  pour  out  on  the  nations  the  "spirit 
of  grace  and  supplication,"  is  not  one  warranted 
in  the  belief  that,  at  some  time,  all  human 
thought  shall  turn  toward  God,  and  that  in  the 
very  desolateness  of  prayerlessness,  men  shall  be 
ready  for  the  grand  reaction  whereby  the  world 
shall  stretch  forth  its  waiting  hands  of  supplication 
toward  heaven.  At  some  time  there  must  come 
an  age  of  prayer. 


^' 


148       PRAYER  AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

And  as  human  thought,  through  the  reaction 
born  of  its  necessity,  must  seek  God  at  length,  so 
each  soul  must  seek  God  by  way  of  rebound. 

It  were  indeed  a  more  beautiful  theory  that 
each  man,  drawn  by  an  inward  and  natural 
affinity  and  affection,  should  turn  to  God,  as 
spontaneously  as  he  breathes.  Would  it  were  so. 
But  we  are  compelled  to  acknowledge  a  strange 
reluctance  to  go  beyond  a  bare  recognition  of 
God.  Nor  is  the  fact  that  the  logical  compulsion 
of  the  intellect  toward  Him  is  overbalanced  by 
the  reluctance  of  the  heart,  to  be  denied  because 
it  is  so  sad  and  unfortunate  a  thing.  And  yet 
here  comes  in  the  reaction.  The  prodigal  is  a 
king's  son  in  the  far-off  land.  He  begins  tG  be 
in  want.  Forbidden  to  eat  even  the  swine's 
food,  half  naked,  sore  of  foot,  and  sorer  in  heart, 
he  recalls  the  old  home.  Bread  enough  there, 
while  he  is  perishing  with  hunger.  In  thousands 
of  hearts  there  is  a  sense  of  coming  to  one's 
self,  as  though  one  had  been  under  a  sad  spell 
of  some  evil  power.  The  moral  nature  asserts 
itself.  There  is  in  every  man  a  sort  of  race 
memory.  No  man  can  distinctly  recall  Eden; 
but  there  is  a  kind  of  dim  far-away  impression  of 
better  days  for  the  race — days  that  were  left 
long,  long  ago.  They  tell  of  a  Russian  prince, 
that  he  had  been  in  early  childhood  spirited  away 


REACTIONS    LEADING   TO    PRAYER.  149 

from  his  home  and  brought  up  among  rude  fisher- 
men. But  always  there  was  a  difference  between 
"^  him  and  the  fishers'  boys;  always  a  dim  half- 
conscious  memory  as  of  a  better  condition  and 
other  surroundings.  The  human  soul  experiences 
this  sense  of  strangeness,  of  absence,  of  degrada- 
tion, of  yearning  for  the  Father's  heart  and  home. 
It  evokes  prayer.  ''  Father,  I  have  sinned,"  bursts 
out  from  a  pent-up  heart.  Nature  in  deep  spirit- 
ual trouble  is  not  atheistic.  It  knows  there  is  a 
God.  It  turns  to  his  Word.  The  key  fits  the 
lock.  The  promise  meets  the  prodigal  state. 
The  Father  meets  the  wanderer  when  a  great  way 
off;  and  they  go  back  together — that  forgiving 
father  and  that  forgiven  son — to  the  old  home. 
The  son  had  proposed  to  ask  a  servant's  place, 
and  begins  to  pray  for  it;  but  before  he  could 
get  so  far  on  in  his  prayer  as  to  say  "  make  me 
as  thy  hired  servant,"  he  is  interrupted  by  the 
Father's  call  for  robe  and  ring.  There  is  to  be 
no  service  of  years  as  a  menial.  He  is  received 
in  the  palace  as  a  son.  The  prayer  of  his  subse- 
quent gratitude  is  not  given.  Perhaps  no  words 
could  express  it.  But  we  may  be  sure  that  the 
"  prayer  that  differs  in  nothing  from  praise  "  was 
offered  and  accepted. 

So  too,  by  parallel  experiences  on  other  lines, 
God  has  wrought  on  men  by  these  great  reactions 


150   PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

of  the  moral  nature.  Not  that  wickedness  is 
preparation  for  godHness,  but  that  its  results  in 
this  world  wake  reflection.  And  a  man  who  has 
stood  face  to  face  with  ruin  has  reasoned  back  to 
the  fact  of  his  sin,  and  then  has  prayed  for  for- 
giveness. What  is  termed  "  conversion  '*  is  often 
reaction  divinely  directed.  The  conscience  and 
reason  and  the  soul  itself,  its  native  wants  laid 
bare,  cry  out  for  God.  Such  a  man  has  some- 
times seemied  to  be  on  an  eminence  and  looking 
down,  by  an  intellect  keenly  alive,  upon  his  soul 
spiritually  dead.  It  became  an  agony  that  there 
was  no  stir  of  right  feeling.  He  was  convicted 
of  not  being  convicted  as  he  should  have  been. 
There  is  a  strange  contradictory  deadness,  of 
which  a  man  is  yet  conscious.  The  soul,  alert 
enough  elsewhere,  is  unresponsive  to  divine  call, 
and  unmoved  except  as  with  a  dull  ache  that  is 
hardly  a  pain,  at  its  spiritual  condition.  The 
very  desperateness  of  a  man  whose  nature  will 
not  vibrate  at  all  to  the  touch  of  God,  evokes  a 
cry  of  anguish.  It  is  the  returning  sense  of  pain 
in  a  body  that  has  been  bitten  by  the  frost,  and 
numbness  is  giving  way  to  sensibility.  It  is  the 
first  promise  of  life.  It  is  proof  that  deadness 
has  not  gone  on  so  far  as  to  death.  And  when 
the  reaction,  divinely  conducted,  has  completed 
itself,  the  throb  and  thrill  of  life  is  an  exquisite 


REACTIONS   LEADING   TO    TRAYER.  151 

sensation.  Then  prayer  is  no  more  a  wail,  but 
a  welcome  relief  to  the  man  whose  burden  of 
death  has  given  way  to  the  swift-bounding  step 
of  prayerful  and  obedient  life. 

To  others,  there  is  a  strong  sense  of  being  led. 
They  were  in  an  Egypt  and  knew  no  way  to 
Canaan.  There  was  a  pillar  of  fire  and  cloud. 
They  were  the  subjects  of  a  divine  guidance.  By 
a  conspiracy  of  circumstances,  the  way  was 
opened.  This  book  read,  that  interview  enjoyed, 
the  song  that  began  to  sing  itself  in  the  soul,  the 
sharp  sentence  that  had  in  it  the  portable  wisdom 
of  the  ages, — by  these  myriad  ways  of  environ- 
ment and  guidance,  God  has  opened  the  gate  of 
life  to  them.  In  his  wonderful  allegory,  Bunyan 
has  made  a  human  soul  start  on  a  pilgrimage. 
Through  various  experiences  it  passes,  but  there 
is  always  guidance  over  a  prescribed  road.  And 
running  through  the  whole  conception  is  the  idea 
of  the  wish  and  the  will  of  the  King,  to  which 
there  must  be  submission.  Even  when  we  recog- 
nize not  a  little  of  the  human  instrumentality, 
there  is  an  overruling,  so  that  we  are  divinely  led. 
It  sometimes  takes  even  the  form  of  being  "  sent," 
of  being  called  of  God  to  a  work  or  a  mission. 
The  sphere  may  be  lowly  or  large.  We  are  set 
in  it  to  do  a  work.  Life  gets  to  be  no  more  ac- 
cidental, because   it  is   now   providential.      And 


152   PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

the  soul's  inquiry,  in  deepest  and  most  reverent 
prayer,  is,  "  Lord,  what  wilt  thou  have  me  to 
do  ?  "  Thenceforth  life  has  had  a  dignity  and  a 
purpose;  and  all  this  has  been  in  exact  moral  re- 
action from  the  old  unconcern.  The  new  mission 
involves  the  idea  of  one  who  sends,  and  guides 
and  gives  success.  Christ's  words  about  a  "  Com- 
forter" whom  he  would  send,  become  precious, 
and  prayer  rises  from  an  earnest  soul  for  the  per- 
petual ''  Presence  "  who  is  to  abide  with  us. 

But  one  of  these  more  powerful  personal  reac- 
tions is  found  in  those  cases  where  the  sin-con- 
sciousness compels  prayer.  To  class  one's  self 
among  sinners  would  have  been  as  abhorrent  as 
among  criminals.  Indeed,  God  had  been  not  so 
much  denied,  as  ignored  as  the  standard  of  moral 
being.  But  there  came  to  be  the  sense  of  sin. 
It  was  not  the  result  of  logical  conceptions  of 
God  and  duty.  For  the  truest  feelings  of  our 
human  nature  are  often  blind.  They  exist  not  as 
locfical  deduction  from  statements  mathemati- 
cally  precise  concerning  God  and  immortality. 
But  they  come  in  upon  the  soul,  as  love  comes  in 
to  man  or  woman  in  the  bond  that  ripens  into 
marriage.  So  rise  some  of  the  strongest  and 
noblest  emotions  of  the  soul.  The  sense  of  the 
'*  I  ought,"  than  which  nothing  is  more  vital  mor- 
ally, is  at  such  hours  singularly  strengthened.    It 


REACTIONS    LEADING   TO    PRAYER.  153 

may  carry  all  before  it.  It  is  revealed  to  the  soul 
what  that  sense  of  the  ''  I  ought  "  involves.  And 
there  is  guilt  distinctly  felt,  in  that,  whereas 
other  principles  of  our  nature  have  had  due  play 
allowed  them,  this  kingliest  consciousness  of 
them  all  has  had  no  fit  hearing;  and  following. 
This  is  not  only  seen  but  felt  as  sin  against  self 
and  toward  the  God  whose  nearness  to  the  soul, 
and  whose  revelation  in  the  soul,  only  half  rec- 
ognized before,  is  now  discerned.  All  this  has 
been  more  than  a  mistake.  And  the  sin-con- 
sciousness is  borne  in  upon  the  soul.  Nor  are 
these  only  ignorant  men  who  are  thus  exercised. 
Some  of  the  noblest  men  in  every  intellectual 
line  of  work,  have  been  so  moved  upon.  Plain 
men,  too,  whose  testimony  to  the  fact  has  been  a 
thousand  times  given,  are  on  the  list  of  those 
who  have  felt  this  ''  sense  of  sin."  They  are 
neither  on  the  one  hand  absolutely  ignorant,  nor 
on  the  other  Jiable  to  urge  an  experience  into  a 
conformity  to  a  theory.  They  m.ake  our  best 
moral  witnesses,  when  we  appeal  to  the  conscious- 
ness of  human  nature  on  any  question  where  such 
testimony  is  desired.  And  it  turns  out  that  such 
men,  in  a  reaction  from  a  former  state  of  indiffer- 
ence, have  felt  justly  concerned ;  have  been,  as 
they  ought  to  be,  burdened  and  distressed  about 
this  accumulated  wrong.     It  has  pressed  prayer 


154   PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

from  lips  that  had  not  been  used  to  pray.  And 
when  relief  has  come  in  conscious  forgiveness, 
many  have  witnessed  the  moral  phenomena  and 
have  said,  "  Behold,  he  prayeth."  The  result  has 
been  long  years  of  clearer  moral  vision,  a  keener 
conscience  has  been  established  as  the  guardian 
of  the  soul  from  moral  ills,  and  prayer  has  had 
its  long  record  of  gracious  answer.  The  philo- 
sophy of  this  change  comes,  like  all  philosophy, 
after  a  recognition  of  the  facts.  It  might  be  true 
if  man  were  only  an  orderly  machine,  that  all 
questions  of  God,  Bible,  duty,  sin  and  salvation, 
have  their  logical  settlement  and  precedence. 
But  in  fact  man  is  more  like  a  living  organism 
than  a  machine.  We  love  before  we  examine 
critically  the  emotion;  we  study  after  we  feel. 
And  in  our  human  nature  there  are  certain  mov- 
ing principles  on  which  we  act  before  we  can  get 
material  to  study  the  action  within.  And  the 
reality  of  moral  change,  and  the  rising  of  these 
moral  feelings  of  sin  forgiven,  of  death  become 
life,  of  straying  feet  led  along  a  loftier  path  of 
moral  living, — all  these  are  phenomena  involving 
prayer  at  every  step,  the  answers  to  which  are 
recorded  on  the  imperishable  tablet  of  the  soul 
itself. 

And  this  matter  of  prayer  once  established  as 
a  fact  on  one's  experience,  will  throw  a  certain 


REACTIONS  LEADING  TO  PRAYER.     1 55 

glow  over  all  life.  The  prayerful  mood  is  most 
beneficent — one  might  almost  say  munificent — 
for  it  enriches  alike  mind  and  heart.  It  opens, 
also,  the  vast  treasure-house  of  God's  word,  and 
makes  a  man  free  to  all  its  glorious  surplus  of 
spiritual  wealth.  The  prayerful  mood  appropri- 
ates where  the  prayerless  mood  only  speculates. 
It  brings  the  treasure  within  one's  grasp,  and 
holds  it  as  a  personal  possession.  And  one  finds 
that  there  is  no  situation  in  life  in  which  one 
cannot  find,  in  God's  Word,  a  promise  to  plead 
in  prayer  which  exactly  meets  his  need.  The 
devout  heart  adores  while  it  wonders  at  promises 
so  pertinent  that  they  seem  written  for  one's  own 
self — God's  voice  to  one's  own  soul.  And  the 
Scripture  tells  us  to  "  continue  instant  in  prayer," 
to  "  watch  unto  prayer,"  and  that  "  men  ought  al- 
ways to  pray."  ''  Prayer,"  says  Jeremy  Taylor, 
"is  th^  peace  of  our  spirit,  the  stillness  of  our 
thoughts,  the  evenness  of  our  recollection,  the 
rest  of  our  cares,  the  calm  of  our  tempest."  And 
what  are  such  words  but  the  definition  of  that 
phrase,  "  a  devout  man  that  prays  always." 

Nor,  if  we  think  of  prayer  as  a  state,  rather 
than  the  act  of  pleading  a  promise,  shall  we  have 
any  view  that  is  inconsistent  with  special  seasons 
of  peculiar  prayerfulness.  Sir  Fowell  Buxton 
writes,   "  I   have  always    found    my   prayers  an- 


156   PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

swered,  and  in  almost  every  instance  I  have  re- 
ceived what  I  have  asked  for.  Hence  I  feel  per- 
mitted to  offer  up  my  prayers  for  everything  that 
concerns  me."  But  writing  of  that  "  division  "  in 
the  Commons  by  which  Emancipation  was  car- 
ried, he  says,  "  If  ever  there  was  a  subject  which 
occupied  our  prayers  it  was  this.  Do  you  re- 
member how  we  desired  that  God  would  give  me 
his  Holy  Spirit  in  that  emergency?  I  kept  that 
passage  open  in  the  Old  Testament  in  which  it  is 
said,  '  we  have  no  might  against  this  great  com- 
pany, but  our  eyes  are  upon  Thee.'  I  sincerely 
believe  that  prayer  w^as  the  cause  of  that  divi- 
sion." 

The  history  of  great  moral  achievement 
abounds  with  these  instances  of  men  who  do 
know  that  God  hears  and  answers  prayer.  The 
usual  praying  mood  was  fanned  into  a  flame,  and 
want  lent  wing  to  petition.  ''  The  effectual  ferv- 
ent prayer  of  a  righteous  man  availeth  much." 


THE   CIRCULAR   MOTION   OF   PRAYER.        1 5/ 


CHAPTER   IX. 

THE   CIRCULAR   MOTION   OF   PRAYER. 

Prayer,  if  we  may  use  a  word  taken  from  phy- 
sics, is  circular  in  its  motion.  It  begins  in  God. 
It  comes  outward  and  onward  and  downward  in 
its  curve.  It  passes,  in  the  lower  point  of  the 
circumference  of  the  circle,  through  our  souls, 
taking  up  into  its  sweep  our  personality,  employ- 
ing alike  our  wish  and  our  want,  our  dependence 
and  our  freedom;  and,  burdened  w^ith  our  adora- 
tion and  petition,  it  rises  again  to  him  who  is 
both  its  Author  and  Finisher. 

Mathematicians  describe  the  curve  as  the  line 
of  beauty,  and  the  circle  as  the  perfection  of 
curves.  But  naturalists  are  also  claiming  for  the 
circle  that  all  things  in  nature  tend  thereto.  It 
is  the  type  to  which  the  tufted  moss  hidden  away 
in  lowliest  dell  and  the  grandest  oak,  monarch  of 
the  forest,  are  both  trying  evermore  to  conform 
themselves.  Every  plant,  in  stem,  in  leaf,  in 
flower,  tends,  more  or  less,  to  the  curve;  and  its 
whole  orderly  procession  is  also  circular  as  it 
goes  its  round  from  root  up  through  growth  of 


158       PRAYER  AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

fibre  and  comes  on  to  seed.  The  year  rings  the 
trees  with  new  wood  and  bark.  The  curved  earth 
is  swept  by  winds  which,  as  they  move  on  the  line 
of  curvature  from  equator  to  pole,  have  also, 
each  storm  for  itself,  the  spiral  motion.  Each 
wave  stirred  by  these  winds  rolls  in  a  majestic 
curve,  while  the  cyclones  that  sweep  the  plains 
are  also  rotary  in  their  movements.  That  evolu- 
tion of  nature,  of  which  our  philosophical  natu- 
ralists have  so  much  to  say,  is  not  claimed  to  be 
an  advance  along  straight  lines,  but  the  advance 
is  by  circles  that  overlap  each  other;  their  con- 
nection that  of  the  links  of  a  chain,  each  separate 
yet  all  attached.  In  the  sky  the  planets  have 
their  vast  swing  in  circles,  and  the  comet,  that 
seems  a  lawless  intruder  wandering  at  will,  is 
formed  to  curve  about  the  sun.  In  each  human 
body  there  is  the  cycle  by  which  we  sleep  and 
wake,  adapting  itself  to  the  diurnal  revolution 
of  the  earth.  And  as  the  earth  never  cuts  exactly 
the  same  plane,  but  there  is  a  slight  variation 
that  makes  progress  possible,  so  by  a  slight  vari- 
ation from  year  to  year,  we  get  the  growth  of  the 
human  body,  and  by-and-by,  its  recession  and 
degradation  in  death.  Mental  progress  comes 
under  the  same  law  in  the  individual  man,  and  we 
are  being  moulded  and  rounded  by  influences 
that  press  in  one  way  at  the  beginning,  and  in  an- 


THE    CIRCULAR   MOTION   OF   PRAYER.        1 59 

Other  in  the  ripeness  of  our  intellectual  life.  The 
generations  do  their  work  of  contributing  to  the 
world's  progress  in  the  same  way,  and  all  human 
thought  grows  because  it  swings.  Yet  the  swing 
is  so  controlled  that  it  endangers  never  the  sta- 
bility of  our  humanity,  and  we  have  it  for  a  pro- 
verb that  ''history  repeats  itself."  Civilization, 
starting  in  the  East,  so  illustrious  as  the  cradle 
and  earlier  home,  not  only  of  man  himself  but  of 
all  those  arts  and  sciences  that  dignify  and  adorn 
the  race,  has  swept  onward,  itself  a  circle,  until  it 
passes  about  the  globe.  But  there  has  been  the 
wheel  within  the  wheel.  For  separate  nations 
have  risen  and  have  run  their  round  under  the 
more  vast  sweep  of  the  greater  circle.  Each 
nation  in  turn  has  touched  the  top,  then  the 
curve  of  retrocession  has  been  observed,  and  then 
each  has  gone  downward,  often  as  rapidly  as  it 
rose. 

Surely  there  is  something  remarkable  about  all 
this.  It  is  more  than  a  hint.  It  is  a  teaching. 
It  prepares  us  to  find  that  in  prayer  also,  the  In- 
spirer  and  the  Hearer  are  One.- 

But  the  avoidance  of  the  straight  line  is  not 
more  marked  in  mathematics  and  in  nature  than 
in  morals.  The  motion  of  moral  thought  is  es- 
pecially instructive.  An  Eden,  if  we  had  it  not 
in  historical  document,  might  be  arsfued  from  the 


l6o       PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

moral  powers  of  man  as  man.  True  he  is  now  a 
sinner.  Broken  shaft  and  fallen  capital  and  the 
glorious  remnant  of  the  ruin,  all  tell  of  what 
must  have  been  in  the  palmy  day  of  pristine 
magnificence.  His  body,  naturalists  tell. us,  is 
one  which  takes  in  all  the  types  furnished  by 
lower  order;  but  it  gives  prophecy  of  no  higher 
being  to  succeed  him  on  earth.  His  mind  has 
that  kind  of  intelligence  which  works  by  reason, 
than  which  no  higher  kind  can  be  conceived  of 
by  us.  His  soul  is  capable  of  moral  sovereignty, 
of  holding  in  the  right  hand  the  sceptre  of  right- 
eousness. He  is  a  regal  being  in  that  he  can, 
with  God,  rule  over  his  sphere  of  being,  putting 
all  things  in  that  sphere  under  the  law  of  eternal 
right.  Then  there  must  have  been  a  garden 
where,  in  the  strong  simplicity  and  vigor  of  ori- 
ental phrase,  it  may  be  said  that  "  God  walked 
with  man  in  the  cool  of  the  day."  "  God  created 
man  upright."  But  he  fell  from  his  first  estate, 
and  there  is  not  anywhere  on  earth  a  human  soul 
that  has  not  felt  the  result  of  that  sin.  But  there 
was  early  promise,  lest  the  race  should  lose  heart. 
Schiller  has  said,  "  The  fall  was  a  giant  stride 
in  the  history  of  the  human  race."  And  a  great 
orator  has  said  that  "  the  fall  was  a  fall  upward." 
Both  utterances,  if  always  it  is  understood  that 
we  read  into  them  God's  plan  of  rescue  through 


THE   CIRCULAR   MOTION   OF   PRAYER.        l6l 

redemption,  are  less  startling  than  they  first  ap- 
pear. The  descending  circle  will,  in  the  fulness 
of  times,  assume  an  upward  curve.  And  the 
circle  itself  also  circles  about  a  higher  purpose 
and  we  rise  to  an  elevation  greater  than  that 
from  which  we  had  fallen. 

We  talk  of  the  moral  progress  of  the  human, 
race;  and  rightly.  Yet  every  gain  has  been  by 
loss.  And  the  survival  of  the  fittest  means  the 
destruction  of  the  unfit.  So  that  in  morals  and 
religion  we  have  the  history  of  buried  opinions 
out  of  which,  phcenix-like,  come  new  and  better 
manifestations.  The  grand  old  civilizations,  with 
kingdoms  in  them  monarchical  in  form^,  bearing 
the  honored  name  of  Egyptian,  Assyrian,  and 
Babylonian,  held  each  a  truth  somewhat  in  ad- 
vance of  all  that  preceded  them.  They  were  a 
grade  higher  than  what  they  supplanted.  But 
they  could  not  live  up  to  their  own  light.  The 
retrograde  motion  always  in  sin  brought  each  of 
these  old  nationalities  down  to  death.  The  truth 
given  them  survived  though  they  died.  It  is  last 
year's  leaf  rotted  to  mould  which  ministers  to  this 
year's  life.  A  nation  inevitably  recedes,  left  to 
itself.  It  climbs  on  the  ascending  curve  only  as 
it  takes  up  God's  thought.  Nations  always  tend 
to  run  down.  A  force  from  the  outside,  some- 
times  a  little  higher,  sometimes  vastly  superior, 


1 62       PRAYER  AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

must  be  thrust  in  to  conserve  them.     Salt  has 
perfect    saltness   only  in    the   Gospel.      But    the 
saline  power  is  felt  before  Christ  comes,  in  the 
thought  which  God  sends  among  the  nations  to 
''  prepare    the  way  of  the   Lord."     The   rise   of 
Greek  civilization  and   letters  is  a  wonder  and  a 
mystery  to  those  who  do   not  see  it  as  a  provi- 
dence.    It  caught  up  and   preserved  all  that   it 
could   carry  and  use.       Plato  taught  at  Athens 
because  he  first  studied  at  Heliopolis  on  the  Nile. 
Grateful  at  the  theft  that  is  never  ignoble,  Athens 
conserved  and  beautified  as  well  as  originated. 
At  the  height  of  her  glory  the  strange  and  con- 
tradictory force   of   emigration   set   in,   and   the 
Greek  swarmed  the  seaports  of  the   Mediterra- 
nean, giving  language,  as  Rome  gave  law,  to  the 
world.     It  is  for  a  study  to  those  whose  curiosity 
is  sanctified  by  religion,  to  trace  out  the  evolu- 
tion of  divine  purpose,  and  the  rich  fruitfulness 
of  national  preparation  for  the  Advent  of  Christ. 
All  forms  of  thought  gave  tribute  as  they  pre- 
pared the  world   for  His  coming  who  was  to  be 
the   Second  Adam,  and   to   bring  back  a  better 
Eden  than  that  we  had  lost.     The   cycle   came 
round,  in  the  fulness  of  times.     But  if  the  prepa- 
ration was  immense  in  one  direction,  the  displace- 
ment was  as  great  in  another.     The  earlier  home 
of   the    race   was   well-nigh    deserted   when    the 


THE   CIRCULAR   MOTION   OF   PRAYER.        163 

Second  Adam  came.  If  the  morning  came  to 
Western,  it  was  because  the  night  came  to  East- 
ern Asia.  And  when  the  Gospel,  which  gave  the 
Asiatic  the  first  opportunity,  was  by  him  rejected, 
its  historic  course  was  hurried  on  by  the  angel 
who  sent  the  message  from  Europe,  *'  come  over 
into  Macedonia  and  help  us."  And  the  disciples 
went,  and  the  older  continent  relapsed  into  semi- 
barbarism  ;  and  Africa,  along  the  shores  of  which, 
in  the  earlier  Christian  centuries,  the  beacon  fires 
of  Christ's  religion  were  lighted,  but  whose  cen- 
tral nations  rejected  the  rising  light,  became  for 
centuries  the  Dark  Continent.  While,  on  the 
other  hand,  Gaul  and  Britain,  formerly  savage 
wilds  of  savage  races,  received  the  new  light  and 
came  up  to  lead  the  world  along  the  radiant  path 
of  these  latter  centuries. 

And  here  again  we  ask,  is  there  not  hint,  sug- 
gestion, prophecy,  in  all  this  singular  moral  move- 
ment ?  Would  it  not  be  strange  if  all  other  moral 
things  working  in  these  ways  of  revolution,  prayer 
should  be  the  grand  exception,  it  alone  having  no 
part  in  what  has  been  called  so  happily  "  these 
charmed  circles  of  moral  motion  ?  " 

The  peculiar  experience  by  which  men  become 
Christians  shows  the  same  great  law.  They  are 
*'  convinced  of  sin."  Led  to  consult  the  Bible, 
they  find  the  command,  "  Repent,  for  the  king- 


164       TRAYER   AS   A  THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

dom  of  heaven  is  at  hand."  Let  us  suppose  a 
man  to  obey  this  command.  He  is  ushered  into 
the  new  moral  sphere  which  involves  a  new  set 
of  facts,  truths,  and  principles.  In  theory,  a  man 
should  have  first  established  each  point  of  intel- 
lectual religion,  and  then  proceeded  to  make  each 
one  of  them  vital  to  the  soul.  But  in  fact,  the 
process  is  often  reversed,  and  the  man  comes 
round  to  logical  views  through  the  processes  of 
the  heart.  He  has  time  to  justify  subsequently 
the  fact  of  his  mingled  humility  and  manliness. 
For  he  finds  law  leading  back  to  Gospel  and  the 
Gospel  leading  up  to  law.  Sin  he  finds  as  the 
fact  on  which  is  posited  salvation.  To  be 
wrecked  is  the  condition  of  being  saved.  To  be 
lost  is  the  necessity  unto  being  found.  ""The 
whole  system  of  things  has  these  strange  correla- 
tions. Moral  truths  go  in  pairs.  The  new  regen- 
eration is  of  man  and  equally  of  God ;  the  utmost 
exertion  of  human  powers  is  consistent  with  the 
utmost  gift  of  God's  Holy  Spirit.  And  never  are 
the  highest  powers  of  man  exercised  apart  from 
the  operation  of  that  divine  gift.  Now  all  this 
experience  involves  corresponding  religious  truth. 
This  going  backward  in  repentance  is  unto  a  go- 
ing forward  by  faith;  this  going  out  of  self  is 
for  the  getting  in  under  the  sway  of  another, — all 
of  which  means  that  the  entire  moral  system  of 


THE   CIRCULAR   MOTION   OF   PRAYER.        1 65 

things  is  adapted  to  give  to  a  man  a  change  of 
heart  and  change  of  Hfe.  For  the  "  repentance  " 
is  a  turning  of  one's  self  away  and  the  "  conver- 
sion "  is  a  turning  directly  about.  The  system  in- 
volves a  Christ  who  goes  through  a  similar  pro- 
cess of  retrogression  and  then  of  exaltation.  We 
learn  of  him  as  leaving  heaven  for  earth,  then 
leaving  earth  for  heaven  ;  of  his  humbling  of  him- 
self that  he  might  be  exalted ;  of  his  submission 
to  all  law  when  he  was  with  us — law  of  which  he 
himself  w^as  the  Author.  By  suffering  he  re- 
deemed us  from  curse.  And  that  phrase  '*  a  suf- 
fering Saviour  "  in  itself  were  a  contradiction,  did 
it  not  span  all  the  wide  distance  between  the  hu- 
man and  the  divine  nature  in  him.  It  shows,  as 
well  the  depths  of  sorrow  touched  for  us  on  the 
one  hand,  and  the  heights  of  glory  to  which  we 
are  lifted  by  him,  on  the  other.  Everywhere  sal- 
vation is  a  circle;  everywhere  moral  motion  is 
revolution,  is  rotation.  God  works  in  cycles. 
The  fall  comes  round  to  Paradise,  the  garden  is 
primal  in  Genesis,  the  City  of  God  is  the  finial  in 
Revelation.  The  first  words  of  John's  Gospel  are 
the  complement  of  the  first  words  of  Moses'  his- 
tory. What  God  the  Father  begins  in  the  Old 
Testament,  God  the  Son  finishes  in  the  New. 
Life  commences  in  the  fiat  of  God  and  completes 
itself  in  the  incarnation  of  Jesus.     If  a  writer  on 


1 66       PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

geology  might  happily  say  that  the  science  of  his 
love  "  presents  itself  with  the  magnificent  specta- 
cle of  immense  creations  travelling  in  a  cycle  and 
returning  to  the  source  of  their  being,"  how  much 
more  may  a  student  of  God's  Word  rejoice  in  the 
immense  combinations  of  spiritual  facts  and  the 
sweep  of  those  procedures  which  show  God  fore- 
seeing the  end  from  the  beginning,  and  working  all 
discoveries  and  achievements  of  man,  and  all  his 
own  special  methods  of  grace  and  mercy  as  well, 
in  vast  circles,  according  to  the  purpose  of  his 
will  which  he  purposed  in  Christ  Jesus  before  the 
world  began. 

If  then  prayer  be  an  ordained  factor  toward 
such  results,  like  all  things  else,  it  must  have  its 
cycle.  Its  sweep  starts  out  from  the  firm  hand 
of  God,  up  to  which  it  at  length  returns. 

In  a  wonderful  passage  of  the  Scripture  we  are 
taught  "the  Spirit  helpeth  our  infirmities:  for  we 
know  not  what  we  should  pray  for  as  we  ought; 
but  the  Spirit  itself  maketh  intercession  for  us 
with  groanings  which  cannot  be  uttered.  And 
he  that  searcheth  the  hearts  knoweth  what  is  the 
mind  of  the  Spirit,  because  he  maketh  interces- 
sion for  the  saints  according  to  the  will  of  God." 

The  passage  is  an  argument.  It  claims  that 
prayer  has  celestial  beginning  as  well  as  ending; 
that  God   cannot  deny  himself;   that  what   the 


THE   CIRCULAR   MOTION   OF   PRAYER.        167 

Spirit  incites  the  Father  must  hear;  that  what 
the  Spirit  puts  into  the  heart  of  the  praying  man 
must  be  known  to  him  to  whom  the  prayer  is  ad- 
dressed ;  that  prayer  is  more  than  human  petition, 
being  prompted  by  God ;  that  the  things  asked, 
when  we  pray  truly,  are  those  which  he  incites 
us  to  ask  in  drder  that  he  may  bestow  them; 
that  the  soul  submitting  itself  to  the  motions  of 
the  Spirit  is  guided  in  the  things  desired ;  that 
man's  voluntariness  in  prayer  is  not  lessened  be- 
cause there  is  also,  equally,  voluntariness  on  the 
part  of  God;  that  the  mind  of  a  devout  man  and 
the  mind  of  the  Spirit  work  as  one  in  the  peti- 
tion, and  that  God  cannot  refuse  what  he  inspires ; 
and  that  the  mind  of  the  Spirit  and  the  mind  of 
^  God  work  alike  in  the  asking  and  in  the  answer. 
We  can  argue  forward  or  backward;  forward 
from  the  prayer,  or  backward  from  the  answer; 
and  both  results  meet  in  God. 

If  any  man  shall  urge  that  the  prayer  of  a  man 
should  not  move  the  Great  God,  here  is  the  an- 
swer; for  God  moves  the  prayer.  If  any  say, 
man  is  too  feeble,  here  is  the  answer;  for  here  is 
the  might  of  God  put  first  into  petition  and  next 
into  response.  If  any  shall  say  that  prayer  pre- 
sumes, here  is  the  proof  that  the  presumption 
would  be  on  the  part  of  him  who  should  urge 
that  God  could  not  or  would  not  be  as  much  the 


1 68   PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

insplrer  as  the  hearer  of  man  when  he  obeys  the 
command,  "  thou,  when  thou  prayest,  enter  thy 
closet  and  pray  unto  thy  Father,  and  thy  Father 
shall  reward  thee." 

Paul's  wondrous  circular  argument  not  only 
meets  all  objections,  but  it  grandly  assures  one 
to  see  that  God  must  ''  know  the  mind  of  the 
Spirit "  in  *'  making  intercession  according  to 
the  will  of  God."  So  that  the  line  of  the  poet  is 
the  best  commentary  on  the  verse  of  the  apostle : 

"  Prayer  is  the  breath  of  God  in  man 
Returning  whence  it  came." 

And  this  conception  of  prayer  as  circular  in  its 
movement  is  confirmed  by  many  a  chosen  text  of 
the  Word  of  God.  The  mechanism — to  use  a 
further  word  drawn  from  physics — of  prayer  is 
clearly  set  forth  in  the  Book  of  Daniel.  We  see 
the  circle  at  the  point  of  its  circumference  where 
it  touches  and  takes  up  the  prophet's  cry  as  a  per- 
sonal force.  He  says  ''while  I  was  yet  speak- 
ing," in  prayer,  ''  Gabriel,  dci/ig-  caused  to  fly 
swiftly,  touched  me  and  said,  '  O  Daniel,  at  the 
beginning  of  thy  supplication  the  commandment 
came  forth  and  I  am  come  to  show  thee ;  for  thou 
art  a  man  greatly  beloved."  Notice  that  the 
prayer,  not  at  its  ending  alone,  but  at  its  starting, 
has  celestial  impetus.  The  commandment  came 
forth  with  the  prayer;  the  answer  begins  with  the 


THE   CIRCULAR   MOTION   OF   TRAYER.        1C9 

beginning  of  the  petition,  and  the  petition  is  itself 
a  part  of  the  answer.  He  has  only  knelt,  and  be- 
gun to  adore.  The  waiting  angel  is  there  before 
a  sentence  is  framed.  Counsel,  strength,  direc- 
tion, and  acceptance  are  all  bestowed  at  outset  as 
well  as  at  close.  His  beginning  and  ending,  his 
answer  and  petition,  could  almost  have  been  re- 
versed in  their  order.  So  elsewhere  we  have  it, 
''praying  in  the  Holy  Ghost;"  and  in  another 
place,  the  opposite  statement,  "  The  Spirit  maketh 
intercession  for  us."  Never  the  man  more  active 
than  in  such  hours.  Never  is  it  more  his  own 
true  prayer  than  when  "  Jed  bj  Jhe_Spirit  "  to 
pray.  It  is  by  His  grace  that  we  are  delivered 
from  the  "spirit  of  bondage,"  and  made  free  to 
pray,— the  old  suppressed  instincts  of  the  soul, 
liberated  from  the  burden  that  oppressed  them, 
and  the  deepest  feelings  of  our  real  manhood  gain- 
ing freedom  to  voice  themselves  unto  God. 

Nor  is  the  other  side  of  the  great  fact  less  in- 
structive. Are  we  free  so  that  the  prayer  is  our 
choice,  our  will,  our  plea,  offered  in  our  utmost 
freedo77zf  None  the  less  is  God  free  to  act  upon 
IS  with  an  intensity  that  makes  the  prayer  more 
than  the  inspiration  of  our  own  souls.  The  soul 
he  is  free  to  select  for  his  consecrating  energy, 
can  be  made  by  Him  a  ''temple  of  the  Holy 
Ghost."     There    are    longings    that    cannot    be 


170   PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

clothed  in  human  language.  One  is  startled 
with  the  words  which  the  Scriptures  use  about 
being  "  filled  with  the  Spirit,"  "  praying  in  the 
Spirit,"  "  filled  with  the  fulness  of  God." 

And  so  the  happy  circle  completes  itself.  We 
are  bidden  to  ''  ask  and  knock;  "  but  it  is  just  as 
true  that  God  knocks  and  asks  of  us  that  we  will 
"  open  the  door  "  that  he  may  "  come  in."  "  Then 
shalt  thou  call  and  the  Lord  shall  answer;  thou 
shalt  cry  and  he  shall  say  'here  am  I.'  " 

**  Every  inmost  aspiration  is  God's  angel  undefiled  ; 
And  in  every  '  O  My  Father'  slumbers  deep  a  *  Here,  my  child!'" 


THE   lord's   prayer   THE    MODEL.  171 


CHAPTER   X. 

THE  lord's  prayer  AS  THE  MODEL  PRAYER. 

The  prayer  usually  known  as  the  Lord's 
Prayer  is  to  be  regarded  rather  as  a  generous 
model,  than  as  a  prescribed  form  from  which  it 
were  a  sin  to  deviate.  Tt  was  the  prayer  for  the 
hour.  The  disciples  had  asked  to  be  taught  to 
pray;  for  John  had  lectured  to  his  immediate  fol- 
lowers about  true  prayer.  Jesus  gives  them  the 
well-known  words.  Barely  within  the  lines  of  the 
new  dispensation,  the  prayer  does  not  contain, 
except  by  implication,  requests  from  God  which 
Christians,  farther  on,  were  not  only  permitted 
but  commanded  to  offer  at  the  throne  of  grace. 
It  even  omits  that  which  our  Lord  subsequently 
taught  was  so  important,  the  asking  ''  in  his 
name."  His  own  prayer  with  his  disciples,  just 
before  he  suffered,  shows  us  larger  ranges  of 
prayer  common  to  him  and  open  to  us,  in  which 
we  are  to  imitate  him;  and  this  last  prayer  could 
with  greater  propriety  be  called  *'  The  Lord's 
Prayer." 

As  a  model  prayer  suited  to  its  time,  it  de- 


172       PRAYER   AS   A    THEORY   AND    A   FACT. 

man'ds  study,  and  the  literature  which  has 
gathered  about  these  few  choice  words  is  very 
large.  It  is  not  of  that  ejaculatory  style  of  peti- 
tion in  which  Jesus  himself,  and  his  disciples,  oc- 
casionally indulged.  It  is  a  deliberate,  calm,  and 
carefully  arranged  petition.  It  suits  the  mQrjT_ing 
liour  when  the  mind  is  at  its  best  working,  and 
the  soul  is  reverent,  exalted,  graceful,  and  ex- 
ultant. It  is  the  prayer  that  surveys.  It  sees 
God  and  man,  and  self  and  sin,  and  grace  and 
glory.  It  looks  heavenward,  but  is  not  ecstatic ; 
and  earthward  it  looks,  but  is  not  sordid.  It  is 
simple — the  child's  best  prayer.  It  is  compre- 
hensive— the  range  is  all  the  way  from  heaven  to 
earth,  and  all  along  the  centuries  of  time.  It  is 
the  unit  of  a  circle  in  its  motion,  ending  where  it 
began;  for  its  last  sentence,  "Thine  is  the  king- 
dom," might  have  been  given  next  to  "  Our 
Father  in  heaven  "  and  the  logical  order  of  the 
thought  would  not  have  been  disturbed. 

It  opens  w^ith  devout  ascription.  The  first 
sentence  is  the  prayer  addressed.  It  says  it  is 
about  to  ask  of  God;  and  it  recognizes  Him  not 
as  immanent  but  as  enthroned ;  as  near,  or  we 
should  not  ask;  as  far  above  us  in  the  heavens, 
or  we  should  not  bring  worship.  The  word 
"  Father  "  conveyed  to  every  oriental  far  more  of 
the  idea  of  sovereignty  than  of  paternity.     The 


THE    lord's   prayer   THE   MODEL.  1 73 

prayer  is  not  In  its  opening  word  irreverently  fa- 
miliar. Nor  has  it  any  new  term  to  apply  to 
God.  The  Jews,  following  their  Scriptures,  were 
wont  to  call  God  their  Father.  But  the  name 
comprehended,  for  those  disciples,  all  Old  Testa- 
ment names;  and  as  they  should  recall  the  fact 
that  he  had  used  the  word  ''  Father,"  rather  than 
any  narrower  word  such  as  ''Almighty"  or 
"Eternal"  or '' Ruler  "  or  "  Judge,"  and  as  they 
should  see  the  word  he  actually  chose,  in  the 
fuller  light  of  the  ante-pentecostal  days,  the  word 
would  grow  on  them,  and  the  relation  in  which 
they  stood  to  God  would  not  be  the  less  reveren- 
tial that  it  is  especially  filial. 

The  prayer  does  not  rush  forward  our  human 
wants  into  prominence.  It  stops  awhile  with 
God,  to  revere  and  adore.  For,  that  his  affairs 
should  be  made  a  success  is  infinitely  more  im- 
portant than  that  any  of  ours  should  be  pros- 
pered. They  make  a  mistake  who  think  that 
prayer  is  only  petition.  True,  there  is  no  prayer 
without  asking.  But  there  is  such  a  thing  as  ask- 
ing God  to  accept  our  reverence.  They  who 
criticise  human  prayers  because  "they  tell  God 
so  much  about  Himself  that  He  knows  better 
than  we  do,"  are  forgetful  of  the  fact  that  even 
when  we  address  a  man  of  high  official  position, 
we  employ  words  that  recognize  his  station,  and 


174   PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

we  remind  him  of  that  in  his  situation  and  rela- 
tions to  us  which  makes  it  fitting  for  us  to  pre- 
sent our  request.^  "  Hallowed  be  thy  name.  Thy 
kingdom  come.  Thy  will  be  done."  These  are 
not  regarded,  usually,  so  much  as  petition,  as 
devout  adoration  of  God  in  himself  and  his  di- 
vine methods.  It  may  be  better,  with  many  of 
the  best  scholars,  to  call  them  not  petitions  at 
all.  It  is  reverent  acknowledgment,  asking  leave 
to  utter  itself  as  best  it  may,  and  so  to  gain  ac- 
ceptance as  the  soul's  worship  of  its  God. 

But  those  who  hold  the  words  "  hallowed  be; 
Thy  name  "  to  be  the  only  ascription,  would  see 
the  first  petition  of  the  prayer  in  the  phrase  "  Thy 
kingdom  come.  Thy  will  be  done  in  earth  as 
in  heaven."  They  find  similar  words  elsewhere 
which  are  direct  petition,  and  ask  why  they  are 
not  a  supplication  here  also.  Let  us  not  stop 
the  flow  of  devotional  feeling  by  any  contention. 
Let  any  man  who  will,  "  ask  "  in  these  words ;  nor 
let  him  deny  the  right  of  others  to  find  in  them 
that  thing  higher  than  mere  petition,  the  highest 
possible  flight  of  devotion  that  is  ever  experi- 
enced on  earth — a  kind  of  prayer  that  meets  and 
mingles  with  the  angels'  worship, — perhaps  the 
first  words  of  our  first  prayer  when,  just  within 
the  veil,  our  eyes  "see  God." 
^\     But  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  words  "  give 


THE   LORD'S   TRAYER   THE   MODEL.  175 

usjlils  day  our  daily  bread"  are  petition.     Here, 
at  least,  we  ask  for  something.     And  those  who 
make  it   the  earliest   request  in   the  prayer,  are 
swift    to     point     out     its    appropriateness.       In 
Genesis,  Moses  does  not  put  man's  soul  first,  as 
an  ancient  Greek,  or  as  a  modern  metaphysician, 
would  have  done,  but   describes  man's  body  at 
the  outset,  because  not  only  it  was  historically 
first,  but  because  "  our  foundation  is  in  the  dust." 
So,  here  it  is,  in  this  prayer.     The  spiritual  can 
wait  awhile.     God   exalts  the  human  body  and 
provides  its  "  bread."     Man's  body  is  never  vile' 
and    low   in    the    Scriptures.     The    unfortunate 
translation  in  the   Received,  is  corrected  in  the 
Revised,  Version  ;  and  we  read,  ''  the  body  of  our 
humiliation."     The  Lord  Jesus  came  in  body,  and 
knew  bodily  want.     Super-spiritual  men,  whose 
only  idea  of  religion  makes  it  a  thing  of  the  soul, 
may  well  wonder  how,  on  their  theory,  our  Lord 
should  have  so  stooped  as  to  say  one  word  about 
"our    daily  bread"   in    this    great    prayer.     But 
God's  view  is  wider  than  man's  narrowness.     In 
the  era  in  which  God  made  man,  he  made  corn. 
It  has  no  geological  past.     God  charged  himself 
with  introducing  the  food  for  the  newly  created 
being.     And   he  has  cared   for  "seed   time  and 
harvest"   ever   since.      Unlike    the   grasses,    the 
grains  are  annuals.     Corn  never  grows  wild.     It 


176   PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

has  no  primitive  type.  It  is  abnormal,  in  that,  in 
its  useful  state,  it  is  not  the  product  of  cultiva- 
tion. It  is  the  most  transient  of  the  things  on 
which  we  depend  for  food.  Never  is  there 
enough  of  it  in  store  to  last  the  world  for  any 
succeeding  year.  God  has  it,  as  against  more 
foes  than  would  despoil  anything  else,  in  his  own 
especial  guardianship.  The  world's  stated  supply 
of  it  is  always  from  hand  to  mouth,  and  has  to 
be  provided  by  an  unslumbering  providence,  such 
as  is  exercised  about  nothing  else;  or  the  world 
would  starve.  Nothing  is  so  precarious;  yet,  in- 
side the  promise,  nothing  more  certain  than  the 
corn  "  for  the  food  of  man."  It  is,  then,  the  fit 
petition,  **  give  us  this  day  " — or,  as  in  the  other 
utterance  of  this  prayer,  "  day  by  day  " — our  daily 
bread."  The  mistaken  spirituality  of  a  former 
century  made  nothing  of  the  body,  and  would 
have  put  the  clause  in  the  Lord's  prayer  about 
"  bread  "  into  the  background.  The  equally  false 
naturalism  of  our  time,  has  sw^ung  the  pendulum 
just  as  far  the  other  way,  and  made  the  body  the 
all.  God's  truth  recognizes  the  body  as  related 
to  the  soul.  The  child's  body  must  grow,  and 
the  multitudinous  youthful  population  of  the 
planet  need  food  for  the  body  as  the  very  first 
thing.  But  does  not  the  ripened  manhood  of  the 
world  need,  for  its  own  sustenance,  a  body  duly 


THE   LOxRD'S   PIIAYER  THE   MODEL.  I// 

sustained  ?     Can  the  man  go  forth  to  labor,  of 
either  hand  or  brain,  except   the   body  be   first 
fed  ?     Insufificient  nourishment  of  the  body  in- 
jures the  mind  and  the  soul  as  well.     A  man  can 
think  and  pray  better,  if  his  body  be  put  into 
good  condition  by  good  food.     A  new  study  of 
our  Lord's  discourse  about  ''fasting"  would  not 
only  correct  some  popular  errors  on  that  matter, 
but  show  that  his  teaching  was  not  in  conflict 
with    the    prayer    ''give    us   this    day   our   daily 
bread."     All  supply  of  physical  want  is  symbol- 
ized   by    the    bread   so    needful     for   m,an.     All 
bodily  needs  have  a  place  in  this  prayer.     Think 
of  how  the  great  populations  of  the  world  are 
stirring  night  and  day  to  appease  natural  hun- 
ger!    Think  how  the   hard  and  horny  hand   of 
want  is  laid  on   the  heads  of  the  great   toiling 
masses  of  the  world !    The  majority  of  the  Asiatic 
and  African  peoples  do  not  taste  meat  twice  a 
year.     The  race,  as  a  race,  has  had   no  plenty 
aside  from  severe  toil. 

Then,  too,  what  were  food  apart  from  appetite 
—appetite  which  may  be  weakened  and  lost  by 
sickness  ?  So  that  the  prayer  for  "  bread  "  covers 
all  physical  health  and  disease,  all  questions  of 
sanitation  and  medicine;  all  the  husbandmen's 
labor,  and  all  the  traders'  industry,  and  all  lines 
of  commerce,  whereby  men  earn  their  daily  food. 


178       PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

Nor  can  we  wonder  that  the  great  social  questions 
of  wage  and  work,  of  "  living  and  of  letting  live," 
the  recognition  of  others'  rights  as  well  as  our 
own,  are  seen,  by  our  more  careful  Christian  econ- 
omists, to  get  answer  in  the  mood  of  mind  in- 
volved when  we  offer  this  clause  of  the  prayer. 
It  is  not  "  my  Father  "  and  *'  my  bread."  It  is 
*' our  Father,"  "our  bread,"  "our  trespasses." 
The  selection  of  the  plural  is  remarkable.  It 
cannot  have  been  an  accident.  It  was  not  in  ac- 
cord with  most  of  the  Biblical  prayers.  Not  so 
prayed  Abraham,  nor  David,  nor  Isaiah.  Jesus 
did  not  so  pray  himself,  elsewhere.  There  is  a 
purpose  in  it.  The  brotherhood  idea  is  here. 
The  race  is  a  unit.  Its  wants  are  one.  Its  sor- 
rows are  mutual.  Its  sins  are  alike.  This  is  the 
prayer  of  men  rather  than  of  a  man.  Bread  is 
sent  to  no  one  alone.  "  No  man,"  in  earning  it, 
"liveth  to  himself."  That  other  man,  over  the 
way,  has  the  right  to  work  for  it,  as  he  has  to 
pray  for  it,  with  us.  And  God  may  send  it  to 
him  so  that  he  may  share  it  with  me,  or  to  me  so 
that  I  may  share  it  with  him.  To  work  truly  is 
to  pray  truly.  "  Give  us  this  day  our  daily 
bread  "  is  morning  prayer  to  be  offered  before 
we  go  out  to  continue  the  prayer  by  our  work. 
"Prayer,"  says  the  old  monk,  "  is  a  trinity ;  for 
there  is  the  prayer  of  the  heart,  the  prayer  of  the 


THE   LORD'S   PRAYER  THE   MODEL.  179 

;'  '  lips,  and  the  prayer  of  the  life.  Either  member 
of  this  trinity  wanting,  all  the  divinity  is  gone 
out  of  the  prayer." 

Recall  what  has  been  urged  about  the  corn  of 
tne  earth,  that  it  is  abnormal  among  vegetables 
needs  not  and  cannot  be  developed  from°originai 
wild  types,  as  in  the  case  of  other  useful  plants, 
that  it  is  always  an  annual  and  that  it  began  to 
be  at  or  near  the  time   when  man  was  ushered 
upon  the  planet,  so  that  it  is  linked  with  him  - 
and,  recalling  all  this,  can  we  be  surprised  at  the 
words  "  give  us  our  daily  bread  "  ?     Man's  toil  in 
prepanng  the  earth  for  corn,  and  in  sowing  and 
harvesting  it,  is  a  sort  of  mute  prayer.     And  the 
waving  fields  of  the  glad  autumnal  time  are  a  kind 
of  d.vine    answer    to    the  world's   supplication 
Because  it  needs  to  be  newly  grown  each  year 
because  there  is  never  enough  left  over  to  feed 
the  race,  the  prayer  for  it  is  to  be  as  constant  as 
the  divme  care  which  is  needed  to  preserve  it 
And  when  the  goldpn  ears  glow  in   the  ruddy 
October  sunlight,  each  one  of  them  is  a  distinct 
answer  from  God  to  human  prayer. 

Some  would  have  us  see,  in  the  prayer  for  our 
daily  bread,  a  supplication  also  for  our  spiritual 
sustenance.  But  this  is  a  mistake.  We  may  no 
more  crowd  meaning  into  Christ's  words  than 
empty  them  of  meaning.     Let  them  stand  as  he 


l8o   PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

set  them — a  prayer  for  the  body  and  its  food. 
But,  then,  it  is  not  wrong  to  remember  how  al- 
ways common  words  had  in  them,  for  our  Lord, 
the  happy  suggestion.  The  crowd  one  day  spoke 
of  the  bread  "  Moses  gave  from  heaven;  "  and  he 
spoke  instantly  of  himself  as  "  the  Bread  of  Life." 
For  the  final  ends  must  be  moral  ends.  The 
earthly  bread  is  help  toward  gaining  the  heav- 
enly. It  is  a  very  remarkable  thing  that  Our 
Lord  does  not  tell  us  here  to  be  thankful  for  it, 
when  he  bestows  our  daily  bread.  And  the 
reason  would  seem  to  be  that  he  goes  back  of  the 
time  when  it  has  been  given;  starting  in  his  con- 
ception with  the  time  when  it  is  not  yet  granted ; 
starting  with  the  moment  before  we  can  ask  it ; 
and  telling  us  that  back  there,  when  God's  hands 
are  full  but  not  yet  opened,  we  may  do  our  ask- 
ing before  he  his  giving.  But,  when  the  man  has 
asked  and  God  has  given,  then  the  recipient  may 
be  depended  upon  to  be  grateful.  It  must  not 
be  that  he  shall  depend  in  vain  on  our  gratitude. 

The  next  clause  of  the  wonderful  prayer  is 
connected  with  that  about  our  daily  bread  by  a 
copulative.  '"'And  forgive  jjs^ur  debj^*'  Some 
one  has  happily  said  that  all  prayer  can  be  com- 
pressed into  two  words,  ''  Give  "  and  *'  Forgive  ;  " 
"  Give  us  our  bread,"  and  ^'forgive  us  our  debts." 

That  word  "  debts  " — elsewhere  given  as  "  sins  " 


THE   LORDS    PRAYER   THE    MODEL.  l8l 

— has  troubled  not  a  few  good  men.  A  little 
thought  upon  its  derivation  would  reveal  its 
singular  fitness.  A  debt  is  what  is  due.  It  is  that 
which  is  owed.  We  owe  all  dutifulness  to  God, 
but  we  are  in  terrible  arrears.  It  should  have 
been  paid.  It  was  not,  and  therein  is  the  sin. 
This  default  in  duty,  this  delinquency,  ever  ac- 
cumulating, becomes  a  debt  to  God  which  can 
never  now  be  paid  by  us. 

No  amount  of  guilty  suffering  can  now  expiate 
it.  For  a  guilty  being  can  never  render  holy 
atoning  sorrow.  He  can  only  be  punished.  But 
his  punishment,  though  owed  for  the  penalty,  can 
never  pay  the  holy  obligation  of  the  obedience 
due.  W^  cannot  paj^_the_ju§t,ji£j»t-^^  <^^^  ^y^ 
any  suffering  or  future  service.  The  sin  must  be 
forgiven.  Some  have  wondered  that  there  was 
not  inserted  after  the  word  "  forgive  "  some  single 
phrase,  such  as  "  for  Christ's  sake."  But  this  is 
to  forget  that  the  prayer  was  the  prayer  for  that 
time,  rather  than  for  the  time  after  the  death  of 
the  Lord  and  the  enlightening  gift  of  the  Holy 
Spirit.  The  word  "  forgive  "  is  enough  to  start 
all  thought  and  stir  all  inquiry.  For  the 
thinkers  of  the  world,  in  all  the  great  religions, 
have  declared  the  impossibility  of  the  forgive- 
ness of  a  sin.  Judicial  minds  see  the  immense 
difficulties.       It  seems  to  many  persons  that,  out- 


1 82   PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

side  of  the  Christian  facts,  the  difficulties  are  ab- 
solutely insoluble.  No;  Christ's  word  "  forgive  " 
is  the  very  word  for  that  stage  of  the  dawning  of 
the  New  Dispensation.  If  a  human  soul  can- 
not see  as  yet — as  those  disciples  could  not  at 
that  time — the  infinite  reason  that  can  justify 
God  in  forgiving  sin,  still  let  the  seeking  soul 
believe  that  unless  Jesus  had  seen  it,  and  had 
known  that  the  reason  availed  with  God,  he 
would  not  have  had  a. man  cry  "forgive  us  our 
sins."  It  is  enough,  in  certain  positions,  to 
accept  the  bare  facts  on  testimony,  and  to  drop 
on  our  knees  and  ask  believingly  for  God's  for- 
giveness. 

And  the  added  test  of  our  asking  rightly  is  "  as 
we  forgive,"  or,  as  some  would  render  it,  "  as  we 
have  forgiven."  If  some  see  here  the  measure, 
others  see,  with  better  vision,  the  indispensable 
condition,  not  indeed  so  much  with  God,  as  with 
ourselves.  Our  forgiveness  of  others  is  not  the 
infinite  reason  why  God  forgives  us;  but  it  is 
the  proof  that  we  rightly  ask.  If  we  ask,  when 
living  in  the  consciousness  of  any  cherished  sin, 
whether  in  feeling  or  act,  against  others,  we  are 
withholding  a  due,  a  debt,  a  wage,  a  work,  a 
right,  from  others.  In  that  case  we  ask  amiss. 
And  God,  answering  our  prayer,  would  be  par- 
taker of  our  sin.     And  therefore  it  is  that  the 


THE   lord's    prayer   THE    MODEL.  1 83 

phrase  about  ''our  bread"  is  joined  by  the  cop- 
ulative ''and"  to  the  phrase  "forgive  us  our 
debts."  And  there  is  added  thereto  the  phrase 
"for  we  forgive;"  thus  making  out  of  the  three 
phrases  one  sentence.  So  that  it  is  everywhere 
a  test  of  true  asking  that  we  shall  never  ask  in  the 
interests  of  wrong.  Never,  holding  an  unkind 
mood  of  mind  to  a  brother  man,  can  we  ask  God 
to  be  kind  to  us.  Nor  must  we  wait  for  an  enemy 
to  make  reparation  and  atonement.  For,  what 
an  Infinite  God,  acting  in  this  capacity  of  right- 
eous Governor  of  the  universe,  may  demand  in 
the  case  of  a  subject,  is  one  thing;  and  the  duty 
of  two  men  to  each  other,  as  brother  men  on  the 
same  plane  of  equality  of  being,  both  often  sin- 
ners, is  another  thing.  We  are  to  forgive  a  falli- 
ble brother,  as  ourselves  tempted,  and  as  those 
in  some  other  matter  in  need  of  forgiveness  from 
our  fellow-man. 

Note  the  careful  order  in  which  the  petitions 
to  "give  "  and  to  "  forgive  "  are  followed  by  the 
petition  to  "lead."  "Lead  us  not  into  tempta- 
tion." It  is  the  cry  of  weakness  and  fear  lest  we 
should,  even  when  forgiven,  be  left  to  ourselves. 
If,  at  first  glance,  we  are  surprised  that  the  peti- 
tion does  not  take  the  positive  form,  and  ask  to 
be  "  led  by  the  Spirit,"  we  have  only  to  remem- 
ber again,  the  time  when  this  prayer  was  put  into 


1 84   PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

the  lips  of  the  twelve.  Pentecost  had  not  yet 
shown  its  tongues  of  flame.  The  near  thing  was 
trial,  and  testing,  which  was  by  means  of  evil. 
The  prayer  is  not  for  exemption  from  any  con- 
tact with  temptation.  It  does  not  ask  that  we 
may  be  delivered  from  the  temptation,  but  from 
the  actual  evil  of  yielding  to  it.  The  testing  is 
in  a  fallen  world.  The  prayer  recognizes  the 
trend  of  a  weak  though  forgiven  soul.  It  is  a 
prayer  that  we  may  be  kept.  It  has  been  happily 
paraphrased  in  this  way:  '*  Suffer  us  not  to  be  led 
into  the  temptation  by  which  we  shall  fail,  but 
lift  us  up  out  of  the  dominion  of  evil."  Then 
comes  the  rounding  up  of  the  petition,  which  in- 
deed some  would  omit.  But  the  omission  makes 
the  ending  abrupt,  while  the  ordinary  version 
brings  us  again  to  the  lofty  mood  where  the 
prayer  began. 

And  so  the  prayer,  singularly  simple  for  infant 
lips,  yet  profound  enough  to  be  beyond  all  our 
measure,  continues  to  be  repeated  the  world 
round  and  the  ages  through.  Now,  in  our  want, 
we  emphasize  the  one  part,  and,  anon,  the  other. 
At  one  time  we  revel  in  its  devout  ascriptions,  at 
another  rejoice  in  the  requests  it  permits  us  to 
offer,  at  still  another  time  we  are  almost  over- 
whelmed in  its  wonderful  comprehensiveness. 
There  it  stands,  recognized  by  lisping  childhood. 


THE   LORD'S   PRAYER   THE   MODEL.  185 

Strong  manhood,  and  ripened  age.  Its  grand 
calmness,  so  unlike  the  fervent  repetitions  of  the 
Hebrew  prayers  of  its  age,  and  its  practical  peti- 
tions  that  God  would  "give,"  ''forgive,"  and 
"lead,"  its  breadth  covering  all  the  distance  from 
the  Father  on  the  throne  to  man  in  his  weakness 
and  want,  spanning  too  the  centuries  from  the 
beginning  of  -  the  kingdom  "  until  its  fulness  shall 
"  come,"  all  these  make  it  the  model  prayer  of 
the  Christian  dispensation. 


1 85       PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 


CHAPTER   XI. 

SUPPOSED  LIMITATIONS  OF  PRAYER. 

There  are  some  things  about  prayer  which  are 
thought  to  be  its  limitations,  but  which  are  really 
its  extensions. 

These  limitations  are  supposed  to  come  either 
from  our  human  frailty  on  the  one  side,  or  from 
the  divine  perfection  on  the  other.  It  may  be 
said  that,  since  man  is  always  faulty,  so  he  must 
be  often  in  error  in  his  prayers.  And,  also,  it  is 
said  that,  since  God's  will  is  perfect,  and  since 
we  are  to  add  to  every  prayer  the  codicil,  "  Thy 
will  be  done,"  we  do  in  so  far  limit  our  prayers 
as  to  ask  little  or  nothing  that  we  really  wish  or 
want ;  so  that  it  were  about  as  well  not  to  ask  at 
all,  but  only  to  take  what  is  sent. 

Now,  it  is  true  that  the  praying  man  is  faulty, 
and  that  he  may  "  ask  amiss."  The  perfect 
theory  of  prayer  is  that  it  is  a  voluntary  human 
petition,  to  which  one  is  moved  by  the  Holy 
Spirit  sent  forth  from  the  God  who  intends  to 
answer  the  requests  he  has  inspired.  But  the 
human  factor  introduces  an  element  of  imperfec- 


SUPPOSED    LIMITATIONS    OF   PRAYER.        1 8/ 

tion.  And  this  fact  must  modify  the  working  of 
the  theory.  Hugh  Miller  complains  of  those 
"whose  unscientific  gunnery  never  takes  into  ac- 
count the  parabolic  curve  of  man's  fallen  nature." 
Our  human  wish  mingles  with  God's  Holy  Spirit 
in  shaping  our  prayer.  And  man  may  not  al- 
ways be  able  to  separate  the  two.  A  praying 
man  may  find  the  unexpected  answer  to  his  peti- 
tion in  the  sudden  flash  that  comes  to  him  on  his 
knees,  and  shows  him  that  his  motives  were  too 
human.  Infirmity  has  played  too  large  a  part 
in  his  petition.  He  may  see  with  dismay  his  for- 
mer motives  as  singularly  mixed  and  unworthy. 
There  has  been  ijiore  of  self  than  of  the  Spirit. 
And  this  man  shall  pray  now  with  cleaner  heart. 
And  the  outcome  shall  be  a  purer  supplication, 
and  one  more  completely  under  the  leadings  of 
the  divine  Inspirer.  The  things  desired,  he  was 
permitted  to  mention.  And  the  result  has  been 
a  lesson  in  self-knowledge.  The  specific  thing 
has  been  denied.  A  child  begged  permission  to 
handle  the  serpent.  Its  beauty  had  fascinated 
him  as  he  saw  it  glide  so  easily  by,  with  its  folds 
of  green  and  brown,  its  keen  eye  glittering  like  a 
jewel.  He  begged.  He  prayed.  He  entreated. 
He  became  frantic.  He  charged  his  father  with 
unkindness  in  not  allowing  him  to  seize  the  ser- 
pent.     All    the   time   the    father   refused.     But 


1 88       PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

when,  in  after-years,  the  story  was  told  to  the  boy 
now  grown  to  manhood,  he  thanked  his  father  for 
the  denial.  God  keeps  away  from  men  the  shin- 
ing good  they  had  so  ardently  desired.  It  seemed 
to  them  a  real  blessing.  They  prayed  for  it.  The 
prayer  seemed  legitimate.  The  motive  was  not 
consciously  unworthy.  There  was  no  mixture 
of  evil  present  to  the  mind.  But  the  earnestness 
of  the  petition  was  seen  afterward  to  be  mainly 
human  fervor.  And  the  answer  was  a  restriction, 
in  one  way,  but  an  enlargement  in  another.  For 
the  pitying  God  gave  the  suppliant  wider  vision ; 
and  he  was  taught  a  lesson  that  could  be  learned 
in  no  other  way.  The  nameless  mother  of  Zebe- 
dee's  children,  modest  for  self,  was  ambitious  in 
her  request  for  her  sons.  She  may  have  thought 
herself  actuated  by  the  best  of  motives.  Her 
parental  love  mingled  with  her  faith.  She  be- 
lieved in  *'  the  kingdom."  A  praying  mother,  she 
thought  her  boys  would  help  the  Lord's  cause  in 
their  natural  nobility.  She  had  trusted  them. 
She  thought  the  Master  needed  about  him  trust- 
worthy men.  But  Christ's  w^ords,  gently  uttered, 
showed  her  herself.  The  answer  was  less  re- 
stricted than  the  prayer. 

I  So,  too,  there  is  a  range  of  things  about  which 
there  is  no  special  promise.  Men  are  not  made 
infallible  by  the  Holy  Spirit.     They  are  to  ask  to 


SUPPOSED   LIMITATIONS   OF   PRAYER.        1 89 

be  guided.  They  may  pray  over  the  question  of 
a  trade  to  be  learned,  or  an  investment  to  be 
made.  Not  to  pray  in  these  cases  would  be  a 
sin.  They  may  ask  God  to  indicate  the  profes- 
sion to  be  studied,  the  business  to  be  undertaken; 
to  indicate  the  city  or  township  in  which  to  lo- 
cate. They  may  inquire  of  him  whether  their 
life-work  is  to  be  done  on  one  continent  or  on 
another.  There  are  surgeons  who  never  make 
an  incision  in  a  dangerous  case,  without  a  lifted 
prayer  for  divine  aid  and  blessing.  There  are 
men  who  would  no  more  think  of  going  into  a 
new  business  without  prayer  than  without  capital. 
Sometimes,  to  be  allowed  to  make  a  mistake  may 
be  the  best  possible  answer  to  request  for  guid- 
ance. A  man  may  learn  more  by  a  failure  than 
by  an  immediate  success.  And  as  the  ultimate 
ends  of  life  are  moral,  it  may  be  that  a  man,  how- 
ever shrewd  and  however  prayerful,  shall  be  or- 
dained to  God  to  fail  in  the  temporal  that  he  may  / 
gain  in  the  spiritual  life.  Or  there  may  be  a  mis- 
take made  in  interpreting  providential  indications. 
There  is  no  infallibility.  But  this  is  not  to  say 
that  there  is  no  guiding  response.  A  man  may 
have  learned  the  wrong  lesson.  The  response 
may  have  been  missed  because  answer  comes 
from  an  unexpected  quarter  of  the  sky.  The 
leading  may  not  tally  with  the  wish.     For  it  is 


190       PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A    FACT. 

by  no  means  the  case  of  a  blind  man  whose  hand 
is  grasped  by  another  and  he  led  onward  not 
knowing  himself  a  step  of  the  way.  God's  lead- 
ings have  in  them,  often,  the  recognition  of  the 
intelligence  with  which  he  has  endowed  a  man. 
God  may  be  educating  the  man's  judgment.  God 
may  be  making  an  appeal  to  him  to  employ  his 
own  faculties,  to  estimate  facts,  and  use  his  own 
will  in  deciding  the  question  of  what  is  to  be  done. 
The  man  wanted  an  overmastering  impression, 
but  God  gave  him,  instead,  a  clearer  intellect 
and  surer  judgment.  God  was  compelling  an  in- 
telligent decision.  In  place  of  the  expected  nar- 
rowness, there  is  breadth.  Instead  of  restriction 
there  is  liberty  and  extension.  A  man's  natural 
limitations  and  infirmities  are  used  as  an  educa- 
tion for  him.  It  is  not  only  tbat  better  things 
are  given  than  were  asked,  but  that  more  is  made 
of  the  asker.  Larger  moral  manhood  waits  upon 
what  seemed  infirmity  and  restriction.  The  man 
who  asked  for  blessings  on  himself  finds  blessings 
in  himself.  But  there  is  another  alleged  limita- 
tion. It  is  said  that  the  whole  idea  of  prayer  is 
that  of  interference  and  restriction.  It  is  nar- 
rowness imposing  its  wish  on  the  perfect  large- 
ness of  God.  It  is  claimed  that  the  conception 
of  God  as  independent  of  prayer  is  the  broader 
conception  of  the  two :  that  it  were  better  that 


SUPPOSED   LIMITATIONS   OF   PRAYER.        I91 

he  should  have  his  own  perfect  and  immutable 
plan.     And  thus  under  the  plea  of  honoring  God 
the  more,  one  would  pray  the  less ;  and  prayer, 
less  in  volume,  v/ould  be  broad  exactly  as  it  be- 
came more  a  recognition  than  a  petition;  more 
an   acknowledgment    of    God's    perfect   arrange- 
ment rather  than  a  request  for  him  to  introduce 
a  change,  which  cannot  be  other  than  a  restric- 
tion on  his  power  as  well  as  on  his  wisdom.  ^ 
The  objection  runs  on  this  wise :  "  God  has  ar- 
ranged not  only  all  events  but  all  potencies.    God 
has  foreseen  and  provided  for  all  things ;  and  we 
cannot,  if  we  would,  change  unalterable  fact  by 
our  feeble  cries."     But  is  not  the  legitimate  infer- 
ence from  these  admitted  premises  very  different 
from  this?     Nay,  more;  is  not  the  fair  and  hon- 
est conclusion  to  be  drawn  from  the  fixedness  of 
things,  exactly  the   opposite  of  all  this  ?     ''  God 
has  arranged  all  events."     Yes.     And  arranged, 
if  that  be  so,  for  tJiis,  as  one  of  these  events — • 
that  prayer  shall  be  answered.     To  say  the  op- 
posite is  to  allege  that  this  is  the  event  not  in- 
cluded in  the  "  all  events  "  which  ''  God  has  ar- 
ranged."    '*  God   has   foreseen  all."     Yes.     And 
this  is  also  foreseen.    "  We  cannot  change  an  im- 
mutable fact."     True;  and  this  fact  of  answered 
prayer  is  one  of  the  immutable  facts.     A  prayer 
offered  is  as  immutable  a  fact  as  is  the  existence 


192       PRAYER  AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

of  God.  The  reason  for  the  prayer  is  the  fixed 
and  unalterable  arrangement  for  the  hearing  of 
it.  And  so  the  reason  forpraying  is  precisely 
the  reason  for  doing  anything  else  in  a  universe 
governed  by  an  Omniscient  and  Omnipotent  God. 
The  objector  on  the  ground  that  freedom  is  de- 
stroyed by  God's  planning,  contradicts  himself  in 
every  voluntary  act  of  his  mortal  life.  He  con- 
futes his  own  objection  every  time  he  lifts  his 
hand  in  God's  air  or  plants  his  foot  on  God's 
earth.  If  it  be  absurd  to  hope  to  gain  anything 
in  prayer  on  the  ground  of  perfect  divine  pur- 
pose in  all  things,  then  it  is  exactly  as  absurd  to 
hope  to  gain  anything  in  any  other  sphere  by 
aught  that  we  can  do.  The  objection,  if  valid  at 
all  on  this  principle,  paralyzes  all  action  in  any 
line  of  human  activity.  If  for  this  reason  valid, 
it  means  that  you  should  do  nothing,  for  God 
does  all ;  plan  nothing,  for  God  plans  all ;  cease  all 
diligence,  for  you  can  do  nothing  against  the 
divine  plan  of  things.  It  cuts  the  sinews  of  en- 
terprise outside  as  well  as  inside  the  closet  of 
prayer.  It  makes  man  a  puppet  by  denying  him 
the  freedom  accorded  him  in  the  plan  of  his  God. 
Now,  it  is  plain  that  there  must  be  some  flaw  in 
such  an  inference,  yet  the  premises  are  certainly 
right.  God  must  be  a  Sovereign ;  and  any  sub- 
traction from    his  sovereignty   over  the  human 


SUPPOSED   LIMITATIONS   OF   PRAYER.        I93 

will  is  a  mistake.  The  human  will,  exercising  it- 
self in  prayer,  has  its  abundant  freedom  in  that 
it  is  in  abundant  accord  with  God's  will;  and 
so  it  is  in  perfect  voluntariness  under  that  will,  it 
is  as  free  to  ask  as  is  his  will  to  answer.  The 
strictly  logical  conclusion  is  this,  that  by  divine 
plan  there  is  place  for  the  prayer  of  man,  exactly 
as  for  any  other  form  of  human  exertion.  In  the 
natural  world,  the  divine  plan  of  things,  in  con- 
nection with  our  freedom, *is  the  basis  of  all  hu- 
\  man  activity.^/  We  can  depend  on  the  sun  to  rise 
'and  set,  on  the  procession  of  the  seasons,  on  the 
ordination  of  seed-time  and  harvest,  and  therefore 
we  labor.  We  see  that  laws  are  fixed,  and  there- 
fore we  labor;  and  therefore  we  pray,  as  well. 
No  law,  there  would  be  no  prayer.  Little  law 
recognized,  little  prayer.  Law  recognized  every- 
where, not  only  in  its  general  aspects,  but  in 
special  events  which  are  every  moment  transpir- 
ing about  us,  and  the  man  will  pray  the  more. 
The  nearer  God  in  natural  law,  as  the  sustainer 
and  upholder  of  all  things,  the  more  constantly 
the  breath  of  prayer  will  form  on  the  lips.  It 
was  a  Christian  poet  who  sang — 

"  Teach  us  that  not  a  leaf  can  grow 
Till  life  from  Thee  within  it  flow  ; 
That  not  a  blade  of  grass  can  be, 
O  Fount  of  being,  but  by  Thee." 

The    more    laws,   the    more    proof  of    God ;    the 

T3 


194       PRAYER  AS   A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

more  laws  recognized  in  their  general  sweep  and 
in  the  minuteness  of  the  providences  which  trans- 
pire under  them,  the  more  prayer.  The  nearer 
and  the  more  active  God,  the  more  we  act  and 
the  more  we  pray.  It  was  he  who  saw  not  a 
sparrow  fall  without  the  Father's  notice,  who 
spent  whole  nights  in  prayer.  It  is  God  recog- 
nized in  minutest  events  that  enables  a  man  to 
"  pray  always."  The  truth  would  seem  to  be 
that  the  man  who  objects  to  prayer  because  of 
"  God's  immutable  plan  "  does  not  at  all  conceive 
the  idea  of  God  in  his  own  mind.  He  says 
'*  God,"  but  means  "  nature,"  or  ''  law,"  or  "  miys- 
tic  force,"  or  "  unknowable  power."  He  is  not  a 
man  who  sees  God's  plan  in  daily  providences, 
in  the  numbered  hair  and  the  falling  sparrow. 
If  he  really  believed  in  a  God  who  was  right 
there,  in  his  room,  where  he  was  writing  the  words 
"  God  has  arranged  all  and  therefore  man  need 
not  pray,"  he  would  stop  midway  in  his  sentence, 
the  pen  would  drop,  and  he  would  fall  upon  his 
knees  in  instant  prayer.  God  so  near,  so  real  to 
him  as  that — and  yet  if  God  is,  he  is  there  and  is 
so  near  as  that — his  soul  v^-ithin  him  would  pray 
despite  himself.  How  quickly  he  would  speak 
to  an  eminent  stranger  the  instant  his  presence 
was  perceived  in  the  room  where  he  was  writing. 
He  could  not  but  pray  if  God  were  felt  to  be 


SUPPOSED   LIMITATIONS   OF   PRAYER.        I95 

near  enough  to  plan  and  to  execute  his  plan  in 
the  very  chamber  of  one's  most  secret  thought 
and  study.  Prayer  is  sometimes  extorted  from 
unwilling  lips, — the  prayer  of  recognition  when 
not  of  affection,  the  prayer  of  compulsion,  as 
from  one's  deepest  conviction  of  its  rightfulness, 
even  when  it  is  not  the  ''Abba  Father"  of 
adopted  sonship.  A  practical  working  faith  in 
God's  plan  as  to  all  minutest  things  is  a  marvel- 
lous incentive  to  prayer.  And  it  is  the  undevout 
and  not  the  devout  soul  that  says  ''  God  is  Om- 
niscient, therefore  I  need  not  pray."  The  devout 
man  says  "God  is  Omniscient;  therefore  I  pray 
with  confidence  to  Him  whose  eye  nothing  can 
escape,  and  who  can  see  what  is  the  best  answer 
and  when  the  best  time  to  grant  it,  and  what  the 
best  measure  of  the  gift  I  ask  him  to  bestow." 
And  we  may  put  it  without  hesitation  to  any  jury 
of  fair-thinking  m^en  as  to  which  man  of  the  two 
is  most  philosophical  as  before  the  fact  of  an 
Omniscient  God.  For  it  is  certain  that  the  man 
who  best  and  most  thoroughly  believes  in  an 
Omniscient  God  will  best  and  most  frequently 
do  the  philosophical  act  of  praying.  And  while 
humblest  souls  may  act  from  a  holy  instinct  in 
supplicating  the  divine  blessing,  yet,  on  the  other 
hand,  there  can  be  no  more  reasonable  nor  more 
thoughtful,  nor  loftier  exercise  of  the  human  soul, 


196   PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

and  none  in  which  a  calm  and  philsophical  mood 
is  more  befitting  and  helpful,  than  in  the  solemn, 
tender  act  of  prayer  to  God.  There  will  be  al- 
ways an  unexplored  remainder  of  mystery  about 
prayer.  Indeed,  in  all  high  exercise  of  the  human 
soul  there  is  mystery,  and  the  mystery  increases 
when  it  is  the  case  of  one  soul  moving  another 
soul,  and  the  mystery  culminates  when  one  of 
these  persons  is  God.  But  it  becomes  one  of 
that  kind  of  mysteries  which  is  helpful  to  the 
duty  in  the  case  of  prayer.  Every  truth  which 
has  a  Godward  side  runs  back  into  a  mystery 
that  helps  best  the  corresponding  duty  on  the 
manward  side.^.  What  more  deep  and  impenetra- 
ble than  the  plans  of  God  in  relation  to  prayer? 
But  what  more  simple  on  the  human  side  than 
prayer  as  the  cry  of  a  child  longing  for  the  light? 
Let  no  man  ask  for  full  explanation  of  this  or 
any  other  truth  on  its  Godward  side.  Adoration 
of  a  wisdom  that  is  necessarily  hidden  from  us 
by  its  very  breadth  is  our  part.  Confidence  in 
him  that  he  is  right  and  wise  when  working  out 
of  our  sight,  is  a  virtue  impossible  to  us  did 
we  completely  understand  him.  Trusting  in  the 
dark  is  nobler  than  trusting  in  the  light.  The 
unseen  is  by  no  means  the  useless  in  nature  or  in 
religion.  Who  ever  saw  gravity,  or  electricity, 
or  heat  ?     In  religion  there  is  always  a  light  from 


SUPPOSED   LIMITATIONS   OF   PRAYER.        IQ/ 

the  unseen  and  the  unknown  on  the  things  about 
us.     The  cloud  appearing  in  the  sky  was  dull  an 
hour  ago.    But  see.     From  away  and  out  of  your 
sight,  down  beyond  the  western  horizon  where 
the  sun  is  still  shining,  there  comes  up  into  that 
dull   cloud   a  great   glory  and   beauty  of  color. 
It  flashes  across  to  those  other  clouds  in  the  east. 
It  frives  them  its  own  warmth  and  glow.     The 
earth,  on  its  rivers  and  lakes  and  oceans,  catches 
the  reflection  from  that  cloud,  which,  after  all,  is 
only  a  something  seen  shot  through  by  a  some- 
thing else  that  is  unseen.     So  duty  has  its  radi- 
ance from  an  unseen    God,  and    human    action, 
alike  in  prayer  and  work,  is  a  better  thing  shot 
through    with    the    divine    glow    of    beauty    and 
power.     Man  works  better  and  prays  better  for 
God;    feels  larger  and  stronger  and  safer  when 
the  everlasting  arms  are  about  him,  and  is  never 
so  free  as  when   God's  blessed  purpose  enfolds 
and  protects  his    freedom,  nor  so    prayerful   as 
when  the  glad  mystery  rises  up  over  him  and  en- 
velopes him,  and  he  cries  with  the  wisest  soul  of 
the  olden  time,  ''And  will  God  indeed  dwell  with 
men! "     A  thing  is  not  the  less  philosophical  be- 
cause there   is   mystery  exactly  where   mystery 
ought  to  be.     The  unphilosophical  would  be  to 
expect   it  nowhere,  and   deny  that   to   be   truth 
which  has  place  for  mystery.     Mystery  is  breadth 


I 


198   PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

rather  than  limitation  in  any  truth  which  runs  up 
toward  God,  as  does  this  truth  of  prayer. 

It  should  be  noted  that  the  Biblical  writers 
never  feel  the  pressure  of  these  alleged  limita- 
tions. They  are  Orientals.  As  such  they  also 
incline  to  fatalism.  The  Oriental  loves  to  think 
that  all  events  are  fixed.  *'  Fate  rules."  "  What 
is  to  be,  will  be  "  is  the  Oriental  creed.  But  the 
idea  of  God  once  introduced,  there  is  an  instant 
change.  The  Scripture  writers  do  not  simply 
use  the  word  "  God  "  where  other  Orientals  used 
the  word  "  Fate."  That  were  as  small  gain  as 
to  have  men  in  our  day  use  the  word  "  God  "  in- 
stead of  the  word  ''  law."  But  the  whole  con- 
ception of  God  in  the  Scriptures  is  that  of  the 
Ever-living  God.  He  is  the  God  alive  to  human 
want  and  awake  to  human  petition.  The  dead- 
ness  of  Pantheism  disappears  before  the  life  of 
God,  who  sits  not  in  solitary  distance,  but  is 
closely  concerned  in  human  affairs.  The  Orien- 
tal, believing  in  God,  is  naturally  and  necessarily 
a  praying  man.  And  the  Scripture  writers  do 
not  so  much  as  name  a  difificulty  or  objection  to 
prayer.  That  there  is  a  God  seems  to  them  the 
siifidcient  reason  for  offering  to  him  prayer. 
Prayer  is  the  natural  thing  because  he  is  the  All- 
Wise  God.  To  any  other  being,  whose  plan  was 
not  perfect,  they  could  not  ascribe  praise  or  offer 


SUPPOSED   LIMITATIONS   OF   PRAYER.        1 99 

petition.  Nor  were  those  praying  men  of  the 
Biblical  times  mere  novices  in  thought.  Not  an 
objection  to  prayer  but  it  must  have  been  duly 
weighed  and  set  down  at  its  full  worth  by  such  a 
man  as  Moses — the  most  judicial  mind  of  past 
centuries.  Such  a  man  went  through  all  these 
difficulties,  and  did  not  sink  like  a  weaker  swim- 
mer, but  came  out  safely  and  stands  firm  on  the 
believing  side.  No  difficulty  can  be  really  new, 
except  in  mere  form  of  statement.  These  men 
prayed  because  they  thought  the  matter  through. 
Praying  men  are  more  sensitive  to  the  difficulties 
of  prayer  than  any  other  class  of  men.  Those 
great  souls  of  the  grand  centuries  were  not  mere 
speculators  upon  the  them.e;  they  followed  the 
light,  and  the  farthing  candle  became  a  glow- 
ing sun.  The  limitations  disappeared.  The  very 
hindrances,  duly  considered,  became  helps.  For 
those  souls,  as  for  us,  neither  the  weakness  of 
man,  nor  the  perfectness  of  God,  is  an  obstacle. 
Both  of  these  facts  are  rather  the  open  doors 
swung  wide  by  angel  hands  for  liberating  some 
imprisoned  Peter.  To  those  men  the  one  fact 
stood  forth  that  God,  just  because  he  is  God,  is 
*'  the  revvarder  of  them  that  diligently  seek  Him." 
So  that  the  breadth  which  belongs  always  and 
necessarily  to  the  idea  of  God,  disperses  com- 
pletely those  mists  of  limitation  that  abide  with 


200       PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

the  men  who  do  not  grasp  it.  Prayer  as  a  con- 
ception does  not  narrow  the  idea  of  God.  It 
enlarges  our  conception  of  him.  It  makes  aHke 
the  mystery  and  the  knowledge  of  God  contrib- 
ute to  its  reverent  and  intelligent  exercise. 

All  the  alleged  limitations  to  prayer,  when 
closely  scanned,  become  its  enlargem.ents.  The 
mistakes  and  misconceptions  gone,  prayer  is  as 
reasonable  as  it  is  righteous,  is  demanded  by  the 
head  no  less  than  by  the  heart,  is  justified  in 
its  theory  and  commended  in  its  practice.  The 
more  it  is  understood  and  employed,  the  wider 
appears  to  be  its  range,  the  swifter  its  wing,  the 
surer  its  basis  in  eternal  purpose,  the  more  im- 
perative its  duty,  the  greater  its  worth  to  man, 
and  the  more  delightful  its  privilege.  The  very 
study  of  prayer  as  a  problem  broadens  one's  hori- 
zon as  its  practice  enlarges  one's  soul. 


PRAYER  IN  ITS  PROPHECY.       201 


CHAPTER   XII. 

PRAYER   IN  ITS   PROPHECY. 

"Answered  prayers,"  says  Dr.  Theodore  L. 
Cuyler,  *'  cover  the  field  of  providential  history 
as  flowers  cover  Western  prairies." 

Another  shall  tell  the  story  of  Livingstone's 
death  in  the  act  of  prayer  that  Africa  might 
have  life.  "  They  laid  him  on  a  rough  bed  in  the 
poor  hut  his  faithful  black  followers  had  builded 
for  him,  where  he  spent  the  night.  Next  day  he 
lay  undisturbed.  He  asked  a  few  wandering 
questions  about  the  country.  His  faithful  black 
followers  knew  that  the  end  could  not  be  far  off. 
Nothing  occurred  to  attract  notice  during  the 
earlier  part  of  the  night ;  but  at  four  in  the  morn- 
ing, the  black  boy  who  lay  at  his  door  called  in 
alarm.  By  the  candle  still  burning,  they  saw 
him,  not  in  bed,  but  kneeling  at  his  bedside  with 
his  head  buried  in  his  hands  upon  his  pillow.  He 
had  passed  away  on  the  farthest  of  all  journeys, 
and  without  a  single  attendant.  But  he  had  died 
in  the  act  of  prayer — prayer  offered  in  that  rev- 
erential attitude  about  which  he  was  always  so 


202        PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

particular,  commending  his  own  spirit,  with  all 
his  dear  ones  as  was  his  wont,  into  the  hands  of 
his  Saviour;  and  commending  Africa  with  all  her 
woes  and  sins  and  wrongs  to  the  Avenger  of  the 
oppressed  and  the  Redeemer  of  the  lost.  And 
so,  though  Livingstone  died,  he  was  Africa's  vic- 
tor." "^ 

Among  the  "  Resolves  "  of  Jonathan  Edwards 
was  this:  "Very  much  to  exercise  myself  in 
prayer  all  my  life  long."  Arnold  of  Rugby  told 
his  pupils  that  he  should  offer  a  prayer  daily  be- 
fore the  first  lesson.  ''  Holy  Samuel  Ruther- 
ford," as  he  was  called,  had  his  out-of-doors  place 
for  prayer  and  said,  "  I  prevailed ;  as  woods, 
trees,  meadows,  and  hills  are  my  witnesses." 
Prayer  has  been  the  strong  tap-root  from  which 
have  sprung  the  broadening  branches  of  moral 
activity  in  the  individual  soul,  as  well  as  large 
fruitage  for  Christ's  kingdom  among  men.  That 
prayer  has  a  natural  fertility  in  a  special  kind  of 
results  is  not  only  a  reasonable  belief  but  an  ob- 
vious fact.  That  ''  things  follow  their  tenden- 
cies "  is  a  clearly  defined  moral  principle.  That 
they  have  actually  done  so  is  the  declaration  of 
all  history.  And  therefore  that  they  will  con- 
tinue to  do  so,  is  a  prophecy  not  without  its  sig- 
nificance in  the  matter  of  prayer. 

*"  Along  the  rilgrimage,"  by  Dr.  ^Vayland  Hoyt. 


TRAYER  IN  ITS  PROPHECY.        203   / 

We  have  thus  far  studied  the  matter  of  prayer 
with  reference  to  its  divine  answers.  It  remains, 
now,  to  look  at  the  natural  result  of  the  praying 
mood  in  men.  It  moulds  them.  The  moulding 
process  is  toward  better  ages  for  mankind,  and 
toward  preparation  for  heaven  in  the  praying 
man. 

There  is  obviously  a  kind  of  charm  about 
prayer,  or  men  would  never  so  uniformly, 
through  all  the  centuries,  have  done  so  much 
praying.  As  the  prayers  of  the  race  get  to  be 
better,  and  purer,  and  more  voluminous,  they 
tend  to  mould  human  nature.  Prayer  cannot  be 
stopped  by  any  force  whatsoever;  but  it  can  be 
ennobled,  directed,  and  purified,  and  so  become 
more  forceful  and  beneficent  in  its  natural  effects 
on  praying  men.  For  prayer  is  both  old  and 
new.  It  is  as  old  as  Eden,  as  new  as  our  last 
uplifting,  in  this  present  m.oment,  of  our  own 
petition.  It  combines  all  the  charm  of  antiquity 
with  all  the  interest  of  novelty.  Youth  prays  for 
wisdom,  middle  life  for  help,  and  age  prays  for 
heaven.  Penitence  prays,  and  faith  prays,  and 
hope  prays,  and  joy  prays.  Success  prays  with 
thankfulness,  disaster  prays  tremblingly;  defeat 
prays,  as  its  last  resort,  for  one  more  trial  this 
side  of  despair.  Prayer  is  a  crucible  into  v/hich 
we  cast  those  truths  that  are  harsh  and  unwel- 


204       PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT, 

come  in  the  creed,  and  find  them  capable  of 
happy  fusion:  and  many  a  man  who  disputes  a 
doctrinal  point  on  his  feet  yields  his  assent  on 
his  knees  before  God.  Prayer  is  a  brook  by  the 
way,  and  a  staff  for  the  pilgrim  weary  on  the 
march.  Prayer  is  a  lofty  promontory  pressing 
itself  out  into  the  ocean,  its  top  unwetted  by  the 
spray  of  any  storm  that  ever  blew,  and  hurling 
back  any  wave  the  ocean  can  raise  against  it. 
Prayer  is  the  seaman's  best  bower  anchor,  when 
his  vessel  rides  over  against  the  toothed  rocks  of  a 
frowning  shore — an  anchor  that  never  gives  way, 
*'  that  entereth  within  the  veil."  Prayer  is  a  great 
rock  in  a  weary  land;  and  in  under  the  cool 
shadow  of  its  overhanging  roof,  where  tiny 
streams  issue  from  the  sides  green  with  the 
lichens,  the  hot  and  thirsty  traveller  finds  shelter 
from  the  heat  and  pure  water  to  moisten  his 
noontide  repast.  "  The  Lord  is  my  Shepherd. 
He  leadeth  me  beside  the  still  waters."  Prayer 
has  its  devotional  sweetness,  its  sacred  calm,  its 
great  sense  of  God,  its  open-eyed  vision,  its  pro- 
found stir  of  all  the  soul  within  us.  It  has,  at 
times,  its  agony  of  desire,  its  pleading  earnest- 
ness, its  very  argument  with  God.  It  grows  jubi- 
lant in  hope  and  it  revels  with  a  kind  of  sacred 
abandon  in  the  promises.  At  times,  it  turns  its 
glass  toward  the  skies,  and  has  a  telescopic  out- 


PRAYER  IN  ITS  PROPHECY.        205 

look  and  uplook.  And  yet  again  the  nearer 
duties  of  daily  Christian  living  are  made  radiant 
by  the  parallel  light  that  flashes  along  the  sur- 
face of  the  field  where  we  do  our  work.  Prayer 
is  now  lofty  and  anon  lowly.  It  sometimes  gets 
it:  victories  by  submission,  as  did  Jacob  at  the 
brook  and  Jesus  in  the  garden.  At  other  times 
it  bursts  into  doxologies  of  praise,  as  does  Paul 
in  the  midst  of  mighty  argument,  where  heart 
escaped  from  brain,  and  would  not  wait  for  the 
decorous  close  of  careful  discourse.  But  what- 
ever prayer  may  be  at  times,  this  is  its  chief 
thing,  that  it  is  a  mood  of  mind,  a  spirit  that 
takes  on  these  various  methods  and  manners. 
*'  I  will  pour  out  the  spirit  of  supplication," 
i.e.,  the  spirit  or  mood  of  prayer,  the  devotional 
spirit. 

Few  gifts,  perhaps  none,  can  be  named  which 
can  compare  with  this  devotional  mood  of  mind. 
It  makes  an  atmosphere;  and  all  the  truths  of  re- 
ligion are  made  transparent  by  the  clarity  of  this 
medium.     It  is  the  light  in  which  we  see  light. 

The  influence  of  the  affections  upon  the  intel- 
lect is  a  well-known  fact.  You  shall  find,  in  so- 
cial life,  persons  not  really  lovely  in  a  single  fea- 
ture, but  who  are  esteemed  beautiful  by  those 
who  see  them  with  fond  eyes ;  and  others,  look- 
ing upon  those  whom  we  call   beautiful  through 


206       PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

a  prejudiced  vision,  declare  them  plain  and 
graceless.  But  in  moral  judgments,  the  personal 
element  of  our  own  sympathy  or  dislike  has  even 
wider  scope.  Jesus  spoke  of  men  **  who  loved  " 
— a  word  of  the  heart — ''  who  loved  darkness 
rather  than  light  because  their  deeds  were  evil." 
The  inner  nature  and  the  prevalent  mood  and  tone 
of  the  soul  were  so  out  of  sympathy  with  our 
Lord  that  the  honest  opinions  of  such  were  mis- 
takes. They  would  not  be  convinced,  even  by 
the  direct  teachings  of  Jesus  Christ.  But  when 
such  men,  under  the  deeper  stir  of  their  natures, 
have  felt  the  desperateness  of  their  need,  and 
have  been  willing  to  pray,  their  difficulties  have 
departed,  and  almost  before  they  knew  it  they 
have  accepted  what  they  had  denied.  The  secret 
is  that  they  have  come,  by  the  processes  of  the 
heart,  into  Christ's  kingdom.  The  trouble  had 
been  that  they  not  only  had  looked  out  through 
colored  glass,  but  with  a  diseased  eye.  The 
mist  from  the  low-down  heart  has  risen  up  into 
the  head.  The  deeper  nature  made  right,  the 
brain  works  accurately  and  fairly.  The  eye  re- 
stored to  normal  vision  and  the  man  standing  out 
in  God's  pure  sunlight,  that  brightness  rather 
than  the  old  darkness  is  now  loved.  In  such  a 
case  the  elemental  steps  are  taken  toward  se- 
curing a  devotional  spirit. 


PRAYER   IN   ITS    PROPHECY.  20/ 

But  the  process  must  not  be  arrested.  There 
are  instances  where  the  truth  intellectually  re- 
ceived is  of  little  moral  worth  because  of  lack  of 
continuous  prayerfulness.  True  religion,  in  part, 
is  a  study,  a  science,  a  system.  But  devotion  is 
more  than  study.  Study  piles  up  the  materials, 
assorts  them  carefully,  and  assigns  them  to  their 
place;  here  these  bricks  are  to  go,  and  there 
those  boards;  in  this  part  of  the  structure  the 
stone  and  the  iron.  But  a  heap  of  brick  and  lum- 
ber is  not  a  house,  a  mere  pile  of  material  is  not 
a  dwelling  for  man.  Brawny  labor  may  collect 
these  different  things,  but  taste  and  skill  and 
careful  work  must  build  the  structure.  The  mere 
scholar  in  religion  may  do  good  service  in  the 
material  he  brings.  But  if  not  careful,  the  very 
criticalness  of  his  mental  habit  may  harm  his  own 
spiritual  life.  For  piety,  as  well  as  learning,  is 
needed  in  the  application  of  truth  to  one's  own 
soul,  unto  the  best  interpretation.  Heart  as  well 
as  head  is  required.  The  devotional  mood  is 
essential  as  well  as  the  critical  method.  Not 
alone  for  plain  people,  but  for  scholarly  men,  it 
is  written  that  he  that  enters  the  kingdom  must 
come  as  a  little  child.  The  arrogance  of  scien-, 
tific  opinion,  the  pride  of  learning,  the  impatience 
of  any  dictation,  the  result  of  the  great  execu- 
tiveness  needed  and  fostered  in  commercial  sue- 


208   PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

cess — all  must  go  down  in  humble  obeisance  be- 
fore Christ's  words.  Receptiveness  as  toward 
Christ's  offers  to  be  Teacher  and  Saviour,  the  at- 
titude of  the  kneeling  suppliant  rather  than  that 
in  which  one  stands  on  proudest  tiptoe,  is  the 
demand.  We  may  not  patronize  Christ's  truth 
if  it  commends  itself.  We  may  not  add  to  our 
stature  in  trying  to  reach  higher  than  others; 
posing  as  orginal  discoverers  in  religion,  we  are 
tallest  on  our  knees.  There  are  truths  meant 
more  to  impress  us  than  to  instruct  us.  Like 
God's  thunder,  their  use  is  to  awe  the  soul.  In- 
genuity digs  about  them,  but  soon  gives  over  the 
task;  for  it  can  do  nothing  with  them.  They 
can  only  be  taken  as  God  meant  them  to  be,  with 
a  devotional  spirit,  that  will  trust  where  it  can- 
not understand;  that  believes  in  them  because 
God  understands  them  and  tells  us  the  ''what," 
but  not  the  *'  why."  All  real  truth  in  religion 
runs  off  into  the  infinite  and  so  is  beyond  our  ken. 
It  is  only  the  false  that  can  be  comprehended. 
When  a  party  were  struggling  on  toward  the 
ocean,  each  man  desirous  to  be  the  first  to  dis- 
cover it,  a  straggler  from  an  eminence  cried  out 
to  those  below,  "  I  see  it."  The  leader  of  the 
party  veiled  his  doubt  in  a  question,  *'  How  wide 
is  it  ?  "  "  About  ten  miles,"  was  the  reply.  ''  Nay  : 
that  is  not  the  true  ocean :  for  no  man  can  see 


PKAYER  IN  ITS  PROPHECY.        209 

across  the  ocean."  No  finite  mind  can  see  all 
about  an  infinite  truth.  And  yet,  every  day,  we 
have  in  religion  to  act  in  view  of  truth  that  reaches 
up  to  God  and  on  into  eternity.  Salvation  is 
through  attachment  of  our  interests  to  God's  in- 
finite plans  of  grace  and  mercy.  Christ  obtained  . 
"  eternal  redemption "  for  us.  We  accept  the 
fact.  The  elevation  of  the  devotional  spirit  is 
such  that  it  can  take,  on  trust,  from  God,  the 
truths  that  the  logical  intellect  can  neither  dis- 
cover nor  understand.  The  devotional  spirit  is 
thus  our  broadest  mood;  and  so  is  our  best  pre- 
servation from  that  mere  intellectual  narrowness 
which  would  abridge  the  wideness  of  God's  rev- 
elation to  what  our  reason  or  intuition  can  de- 
termine. In  such  a  scheme  of  things  as  those 
which  environ  a  man  in  a  gospel  land,  the  devo- 
tional spirit  is  one  of  the  best  preservatives  from 
religious  error. 

And  this  prayerful  spirit  is,  moreover,  a  cen- 
tral citadel  against  the  assaults  of  temptation. 
The  most  of  our  temptations  come  up  through 
the-  gateways  of  passion  and  desire.  The  as- 
sault is  not  so  much  upon  our  principles  as  upon 
our  feelings.  This  kind  of  warfare  aims  to  do 
as  gunners  do  in  war,  when  they  send  their  hot 
shot  into  a  beleaguered  city,  hoping  to  fire  the 
buildings  or  to  explode  the  magazines,  and  thus 
M 


2IO       PRAYER  AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

induce  surrender  without  assaulting  the  outer 
defences.  Mere  conscience  and  will  are  not 
enougli.  The  heart  must  be  guarded  in  its  emo- 
tions. Men  fall  suddenly  who  had  stood  high 
for  years  under  the  protection  of  sentinels  who 
guarded  every  outpost.  But  it  Avas  a  sudden 
bombshell  thrown  over  the  guards  on  the  w^alls, 
and  coming  in  upon  the  affections,  that  made 
such  liavoc.  Not  those  men  who  have  most  prin- 
ciple or  most  knowledge  are  the  most  secure, 
but  those  who  possess  in  their  hearts  the  most  of 
the  spirit  of  devotion.  No  amount  of  resolving 
will  help  a  man,  apart  from  the  mood  of  mind 
that  walks  lovingly  and  truly  with  God  in  con- 
stant prayerfulness.  We  must  guard  the  cen- 
tral magazine  where  is  stored  the  powder  which 
a  spark  may  explode.  Luther  says,  "  The  devil 
plagues  and  torments  us  in  the  place  where  we 
are  the  most  tender  and  weak.  In  Paradise  he 
fell  not  upon  Adam,  but  upon  Eve."  It  is  not 
sinful  to  be  tempted.  The  sin  is  in  the  yielding. 
God's  method  of  dealing  is  to  allow  us  to  be 
tempted,  and  then  to  sanctify  us  by  giving  us  the 
strength  to  overcome  it.  The  temptation  may 
be  stronger  than  our  unaided  will  can  meet.  We 
are  not  matched  against  infernal  wiles  used  by  one 
who  has  had  six  thousand  years  of  all  too  skilful 
practice.     The  ordinary  tem.ptations  of  any  man 


PRAYER  IN  ITS  PROPHECY.        211 

are  strong  enough  to  ruin  him  :  each  one  of  them 
has  overthrown  miUions  as  good  and  as  firm  as 
he.  And  the  better  a  man  the  more  his  tempta- 
tions. Christ  was  tempted  with  kingdoms.  None 
so  suffer  as  those  at  whom  Satan,  because  they 
stand  so  high,  strikes  his  strongest  blows.  !i^Iha.,t 
need  of  tempting  a  wicked  man  ?  He  tempts 
himself.  Satan  is  fairly  sure  of  him.  It  were 
needless  to  spend  time  and  art,  and  spread  net 
and  snare,  and  solicit  and  seduce  such  an  one. 
But  if  Satan  can  get  a  really  good  man  to  fall,  he 
is  filled  with  his  infernal  joy.  We  will  set  our 
watch  on  the  walls.  We  will  guard  every  out- 
post. We  will  strengthen  our  resolves.  We  will 
bring  in  all  holy  fear.  We  will  busy  our  hands 
with  willing  work.  '  We  will  do  our  utmost  at 
resistance.  But  the  best  thing  to  do  is  to  pray 
and  pray,  until  we  get  anointed  from  God  with 
the  "spirit  of  prayer;"  until  the  whole  mood  of 
soul  is  devotional,  until  the  whole  tone  and  tem- 
per of  mind  is  that  of  a  life  "hidden  with  Christ 
in  God." 

Closely  allied  with  the  form  of  temptation  just 
considered  is  that  which  comes  from  an  unoccu- 
pi^  heart.  The  intellect  may  be  full  of  truth, 
but  the  heart  be  desolate.  Yet  something  must 
be  loved.  The  tendrils  must  not  grovel  on  the 
soil  where  the  earthworm  feeds  upon  them.    The 


212       PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

loves  of  the  heart  must  be  lifted  into  God's  sun 
and  air.  The  tender  spiritual  mood  is  needed; 
the  loving  nature  must  be  maintained,  the  affec- 
tionate spirit  be  cherished.  Forbidden  things, 
painted  in  novel  colors,  will  get  the  attention  of 
a  wandering  and  unoccupied  eye.  Golden  temp- 
tations by  their  glitter  will  attract  the  soul  un- 
filled with  divine  good.  We  cannot  be  empty- 
hearted.  The  baited  hook  is  for  the  hungry 
mouth.  How  plainly  a  devotional  spirit  is  one 
of  the  best  shields  against  temptation.  The  de- 
fence, in  this  case  w^ill  be  just  at  the  point  of  the 
attack.  Feeling  will  be  met  by  feeling;  the 
lower  by  the  higher,  the  evil  spirit  by  the  good 
spirit.  The  heart  full  of  these  contemplations  of 
God's  grace  gained  through  a  prayerful  study  of 
God's  Word,  will  be  preoccupied.  Other  plea- 
sures will  bar  out  the  painted  deceits  of  sin.  Let 
once  the  devotional  habit  be  established,  and 
there  will  be  a  fear  lest  anything  whatsoever 
should  disturb  the  delicious  joy.  For  habits  are 
like  ruts  in  the  highway,  and  the  heart  goes  easi- 
est in  them.  And  these  devotional  habits,  this 
constant  life  of  communion  with  God,  brings  us 
into  contact  with  a  whole  world  of  spiritual  facts 
that  are  never  exhausted.  They  are  too  wide  in 
themselves,  too  largely  related  to  human  life  here 
and  the  eternal  life  beyond,  ever  to  grow  stale 


PRAYER   IN    ITS    PROPHECY.  21 3 

and  flat  and  unprofitable.  We  never  do  much 
more  than  just  to  dip  beneath  the  surface  of  this 
ocean.  We  never  work  this  mine  so  much  and 
so  long  as  to  exhaust  all  its  ore.  The  mere  in- 
tellectual conception  of  truth  may  weary,  but  the 
moral  side,  discoverable  to  the  man  of  prayerful 
spirit,  rests  and  refreshes. 

It  needs  no  argument  to  show  that  a  human 
soul   introduced,   in   this  way,  to  the   mind  and 
heart  of  God,  cannot  lack  for  subjects  of  interest 
and    impressiveness.     Admitted    to    daily    com- 
munion with  ''  the  God  of  all  grace,"  it  must  be- 
come graciously  inclined.     Seeing  into  the  bosom 
of  God's  love  in  its  gospel  manifestation,  it  must 
grow  loving.     This  divine  preoccupation  must  be 
the   armor  within.     It   must   be  the  central  life 
which    repels   all  which   is    antagonistic.     It  has 
something  to  give  out  of  its  fulness,  and  little  to 
take    from   the   scanty  and   fallacious    joys   that 
come    as    tempters.     The    room    is    taken.     The 
heart  has  found  its  natural  home  in  God's  love 
and  grace.     The  prodigal  soul,  come  back  to  the 
Father's  house,  has    had  enough    of  wandering. 
We   do  not   read  that  the   restored  son  ever  re- 
turned to  the  husks  in  the  far-off  land.     There 
was  enough,  now,  all  about  him,  in  the  father's 
home,  to  charm  him  into  staying  there  for  a  life- 
time. 


214       PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FxlCT. 

And  the  mood  of  true  prayerfulness  does  not 
nourish  the  solitary  to  the  harm  of  the  social 
graces.  One  may  begin  by  praying  to  "  my 
Father;"  but  he  soon  comes  to  say  ^' Our 
Father."  All  love  that  has  God's  love  in  it  is 
holy.  The  life-blood  of  piety  is  the  devotional 
spirit,  and  it  comes  to  be  tender  and  true  to- 
ward man  as  beloved  of  God.  Much  is  said 
about  the  culture  of  human  affection,  of  brother- 
hood love.  But  as  there  would  be  no  brother 
save  for  a  father,  so  there  is  no  brotherhood  love 
which  is  holy  that  does  not  stand  in  first  loving 
the  Father.  Mere  unsanctificd  affectionateness, 
the  animal  feeling  for  kind  and  kindred,  we  share 
with  the  brutes;  and  there  is  no  religion  about 
it.  Only  as  the  natural  instinct  is  shot  through 
with  holy  love  does  it  rise  into  a  religious  virtue. 
There  is  no  holiness  in  the  love  of  a  lioness  for 
her  young.  It  is  simply  natural,  instinctive,  and 
non-moral.  Another  element  than  the  natural 
must  be  thrust  in  to  lift  our  human  affection  to 
the  rank  of  sanctified  affection.  God's  love  in 
us  not  only  enlarges  love,  but  purifies  its  source. 
There  are  diseases  which  seize  on  some  special 
member  of  the  body.  They  affect  the  ear  or  the 
eye.  The  pain  is  manifested  now  here  and  now 
there.  All  local  remedies  are  vain.  At  length 
the  physician  begins  to  look  back  among  the  vital 


PRAYER    IN    ITS    PROPHECY.  21 5 

organs  for  the  cause.     No  more  is  he  successful 
there  in  his  treatment.     Presently  he  discovers 
that  there  is  a  defect  in  the  blood,  the  central 
fluid_oliife,  and  begins  to  comprehend  the  fact 
that  only  as  that  is  purified,  can  he  reach  the  dis- 
ease which  showed  itself  in  local  troubles.     All 
attention  is  now  directed  to  this  one  central  act ; 
and   if  he   can  succeed  in    pouring   through   the 
veins  of  the  body  a  fuller  and  richer  tide  of  vital 
blood,  he  has  made  his  cure.    Tjiere  are  evils  that 
rectify  thernselves  when  the  heart  is  right.     And 
though  the  application   to   a  local   trouble  may 
still  be  needed  in  some  cases,  the  new  nature  is 
there,  to  which  we   can   appeal,  when  we  would 
make  the  outer  conduct  correspond  with  the  in- 
ner life.     The  faults  of  a  quick  temper,  a  peevish 
mood,  a  petulant  reply,  are  by  none  more  clearly 
seen  and  earnestly  deplored   than  by  those  who 
are  striving,  notwithstanding  these  infirmities,  to 
subdue    all    things    to   the    dominion    of    Christ. 
Never   does   a  man    see    these   imperfections   so 
clearly    as   when    they   are   remembered    on    his 
knees.     Never  does  he  struggle  against  them  so 
earnestly  as  when  he   finds  that  they  hinder  his 
prayer.     Never  does  he  gain  such  victories  over 
them  as  when  the  peculiar  devotional  mood  has 
sway,  and  he  lives  daily  in  communion  with  God. 
This  prayerful  spirit  takes  out  the  hardness  and 


2l6       PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

harshness  and  censoriousness  native  to  some  men. 
It  warmis  up  the  natural  coldness  and  calculation 
and  mathematical  regularity  of  some  men's 
virtues.  It  puts  a  man  in  the  way  of  knowing  the 
luxury  of  what  has  been  called  the  "  abandon  of 
goodness;"  the  surrender  of  one's  self  to  the 
sacred  impulses  of  religion.  An  affectionate 
Christian,  who  is  neither  afraid  nor  ashamed  to 
allow  himself  the  delight  of  sanctified  feeling,  is 
a  higher  style  of  man  than  he  who  is  statuesque 
in  his  piety. 

Among  the  habits  of  mind  conducive  to  de- 
votion is  that  of  connecting  all  things  with  God. 
It  sees  that  the  little  things  as  weU  as  the  large 
are  under  his  eye.  Our  Lord  told  us  that  the 
falling  sparrow  and  the  numbered  hair  are  held 
in  mind  by  his  Father.  Never  mind  scoffers  who 
call  this  childish.  Never  mind  the  extra-critical 
men  who  cry  law  here  and  law  there.  No  matter 
now  for  your  philosophical  theory,  whether  you 
hold  matter  to  have  been  originally  endowed  with 
potencies,  or  so  made  as  to  be  acted  upon,  each 
instant,  by  direct  forces  which  can  be  exercised 
only  by  mind.  Let  us  not  get  befogged  amid 
the  question  of  first  and  of  second  causes.  God 
is  conceived  of  by  the  pious  men  of  the  Scripture 
as  the  present  energy  of  the  world.  And  human 
hearts,  attuned  to  the  divine  harmonies  of  love, 


PRAYER  IN  ITS  PROPHECY.        21/ 

feel  him  near  and  own  him  the  Sustainer  as  well 
as  the  Creator  of  the  Universe. 

When  Peter  and  John  were  forbidden  to  speak 
in  the  name  of  Jesus,  the  early  Christians  "  lifted 
up  their  voices  to  God  with  one  accord  and  said, 
'  Lord,  thou  art  God,  which  hast  made  heaven 
and  earth  and  the  sea  and  all  that  in  them  is.*  " 
At  first  glance,  such  a  petition  seems  like  the 
stately  words  of  a  grand  invocation  at  a  great 
public  service.  But  closely  read,  it  is  just  the 
opposite.  These  men  were  going  to  brave  the 
wrath  of  their  rulers  by  disobedience  to  their 
order.  But  there  was  a  God,  who  was  Sovereign 
of  the  visible  universe.  Their  appeal  was  away 
from  a  human  to  a  divine  Ruler.  Their  hope  of 
successfully  doing  what  was  their  duty,  was  in 
the  Almighty  God  who  had  m.ade  "the  heaven 
and  earth  and  sea  and  all  that  in  them  is."  It 
was  the  simplicity  of  their  devotional  mood  that 
gave  them  such  exaltation.  Such  a  powerful, 
superaboundingly  powerful,  God  was  on  their 
side.  No  idea  had  they,  but  that  such  a  God, 
who  so  intimately  controlled  all  things,  would 
answer.  The  praying  mood,  in  their  case,  con- 
nected all  things  with  God.  It  even  took  in  the 
will  of  their  haughty  rulers,  since  it  made  their 
arrogance  the  reason  for  God's  supreme  action. 
Those  rulers  were  thought  to  be  wise ;  but  God 


2l8       PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A    FACT. 

was  all-wise.  Those  rulers  declared  tJieir  will ; 
God  would  show  what  Jiis  hand  and  counsel  had 
determined  before  to  be  done.  It  was  will 
against  will,  plan  against  plan ;  and  the  one  who 
had  bidden  them  speak  had  known  the  will  of 
those  who  forbade  them.  Their  God  and  Christ 
was  intimately  concerned  in  all  things.  These 
disciples  were  in  no  accidental  position.  Not  a 
word  do  they  say  about  ''  law  '* — or,  if  that  name 
be  new, — not  a  word  about  "  the  principles  "  of 
which  all  the  thought  and  speech  of  their  time 
was  so  full.  It  is  all,  God.  They  were  em- 
bosomed with  him.  He  is  authority  and  appeal. 
His  will,  not  their  own,  nor  that  of  Jewish  rulers, 
should  be  done  by  them.  ''  Grant  unto  thy  ser- 
vants that  with  all  boldness  they  may  speak  thy 
word."  And  so  these  men  were  philosophical 
without  knowing  it.  For  the  unphilosophic 
mood  is  that  which  restrains  prayer.  To  refer 
our  life  in  all  its  events  to  God's  arrangements, 
is  to  find  material  in  hourly  providence  for  the 
devotional  spirit. 

And  thus  is  begotten  a  kind  of  moral  intre- 
pidity which  is  a  very  illustrious  Christian  virtue. 
Prayer  is  pledged  duty.  There  is  often  seen, 
w^hen  in  the  very  act  of  prayer,  some  duty  which 
once  done,  is  God's  answer  through  our  own  act. 
We  are  given  of  God  to  answer  some  of  our  own 


PRAYER  IN  ITS  PROPHECY.        2I9 

prayers.  We  are  bound  to  do  our  utmost  for 
gaining  the  ends  for  which  we  are  praying.  Some 
things  go  naturally  with  petition.  They  are  the 
''  Amen  "  in  act,  of  the  words  of  prayer.  There 
are  things  that  comport  well  with  the  earnestness 
with  which  we  plead  for  divine  blessing.  We 
must  work  for  what  we  pray  for,  or  we  shall  soon 
cease  to  pray  for  it.  And  how  it  stirs  us  to 
heroic  effort,  when  in  close  communion  with  God, 
we  seem  to  get  in  among  the  gracious  activities 
of  the  divine  mind.  God  is  the  ceaseless  worker, 
with  amazing  obstacles  to  confront  Him.  God 
is  a  man  of  war.  John  saw  war  in  heaven,  and 
victory  over  mighty  foes  won  by  him  whose  title 
was  ''  King  of  Kings,  and  Lord  of  Lords."  En- 
thronement in  a  universe,  in  which  for  reasons 
known  only  to  God,  evil -is  permitted  to  organize 
and  do  its  worst,  is  not  a  place  of  ease.  The  in- 
tense personal  activity  of  God  is  the  constant  idea 
of  the  Bible.  He  is  a  foe  and  he  has  foes.  It  is  no 
easy  work  to  counteract  evil  in  free  intelligences. 
It  required  the  wisdom  of  God  to  lay  the  plan, 
the  power  of  God  to  execute  it,  the  love  of  God 
in  the  self-denial  of  the  Calvary  cross  to  accom- 
plish it,  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit  to  each  hu- 
man soul  to  secure  it.  In  some  far-off  eternity, 
when  weakness,  confined  to  the  great  prison-house 
of  the  universe,  shall  cease  to  rage  because  utterly 


220   PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

hopeless,  when  not  a  finger  shall  be  lifted  because 
the  final  judgment  day  is  come  and  gone,  the 
placidness  of  God  may  be  the  theme  of  heavenly 
song.  Isaac  Taylor  in  his  "  Last  Conflict  of 
Great  Principles,"  one  of  the  finest  prose  poems 
in  the  language,  sketches  the  final  battle  of  these 
present  antagonisms,  and  glances  on  to  the  time 
when  God  shall  *'  enter  into  his  rest."  But,  until 
then,  he  has  *'  girded  his  sword  upon  his  thigh." 
Until  then  he  is  in  the  midst  of  the  battle.  And 
for  a  man  to  be  admitted,  through  much  of 
prayer  and  study  of  the  Word,  into  ''  the  Secret 
of  the  Lord,"  is  to  hear  the  clash  of  the  resound- 
ing arms,  and  to  ask  a  place  in  the  fight  "on  the 
Lord's  side."  It  is  for  a  man  to  be  strong  in  the 
faith  of  the  final  supremacy  of  Christ.  And  all 
this  vigorous  grasp  of  God's  great  thought  is  not 
only  an  interpretation  of  the  universe,  but  it 
helps  wondrously  the  individual  soul  to  be  strong 
and  wax  valiant  in  the  fight.  Such  a  man  sees 
that  evil  is  not  a  trifle,  sin  not  a  mere  blemish, 
wrong  not  the  unripe  fruit  of  right.  Evil  is  seen 
with  mighty  head  and  front.  The  kingdom  of 
wickedness  is  a  tremendous  reality.  It  is  organ- 
ized wrong,  intensely  active  and  immensely 
potent.  And  sometimes  it  makes  such  a  praying 
man  afraid.  Even  Christ  ''  feared."  He  had  his 
hours  of   conflict   with   the  power  of   darkness. 


PRAYER  IN  ITS  PROPHECY.        221 

But  right  over  against  the  kingdom  of  evil  with 
its  Satanic  head,  and  its  allegiant  spirits,  and 
its  willing  subjects  among  men,  is  the  "  kingdom 
of  God,"  Christ  its  head,  its  subjects  redeemed 
and  rescued  and  praying  and  believing  souls. 
And  the  issue  is  joined.  The  praying  man  takes 
sides  with  God.  And  there  is,  as  the  direct  re- 
sult of  these  views  of  Christ's  kingdom — views, 
which  if  not  born  are  yet  widened  by  prayer — 
the  most  splendid  moral  intrepidity. 

It  is  this  union  of  the  soul  with  the  great  God 
in  prayer,  and  this  alliance  of  our  interests  with 
those  of  his  great  *'  kingdom,"  that  rids  many  a 
man  of  an  unutterable  and  horrible  loneliness. 
There  is  hardly  another  oppression  so  great  as 
that  of  being  morally  alone — the  sense  of  being 
out  of  sympathy  with  God,  and  standing  amid 
pitiless  and  destructive  forces  that  can  so  easily 
wreck  us.  On  a  dark  night,  on  some  dreary 
moor,  where  the  thick  rain  comes  in  frenzied 
swirls,  and  the  earth  trembles  with  the  jar  of  the 
thunder,  and  the  whole  world  seems  at  the  sport 
of  all  mightiest  agencies,  stands  a  man,  alone, 
fearfully,  terribly  alone,  with  all  these  adverse 
powers  doing  their  worst  about  him.  But  about 
prayerless  men,  whether  they  see  it  or  not,  there 
is  the  gathering  storm,  the  loosing  of  moral  ele- 
ments that  can  affright  the  bravest  man.     Now 


222       PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

and  then  a  man's  eyes  are  opened.  He  sees  the 
danger  and  is  awake  to  his  frightful  moral  loneli- 
ness. Such  a  one  may  have  another  vision,  that 
of  God  inviting  the  lonely  soul  to  the  compan- 
ionship of  the  forgiven  and  the  saved ;  and,  b.et- 
ter  than  all,  to  fellowship  with  the  Father 
through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord.  To  lonely  souls 
comes  the  call,  ''  draw  nigh  unto  Me."  And  the 
one  way  is  that  of  believing  prayer.  The  new 
alliance  with  God  is  the  end  of  spiritual  loneli- 
ness. 

Prayer  as  an  habitual  mood  is  greatly  pro- 
moted, again,  by  the  use  of  set  times  and  special 
places  for  its  exercise.  We  are  not  told,  happily, 
how  often  to  pray.  How  formalism  would  then 
have  seized  on  what  is  the  freest  of  all  things, 
this  matter  of  prayer!  How  much  of  mechanical 
religion,  had  we  been  commanded  as  to  the  num- 
ber of  times  for  prayer  and  as  to  its  specific 
places!  The  freedom  left  us  by  our  Lord  is  not 
the  freedom  to  omit,  but  the  freedom  to  accept, 
frequently,  the  privilege.  We  are  not  left  to  use 
any  place  for  our  closet  of  prayer  because  place 
is  of  no  importance,  but  for  the  very  opposite 
reason.  Men  find  that  they  can  do  better  work 
in  manual  labor,  better  work  as  students  and  ac- 
countants, when  they  have  become  zvonted  to 
places.     The  boy  was  almost  a  philosopher,  who 


PRAYER  IN  ITS  PROPHECY.        223 

gave  as  a  reason  for  missing  the  question^  that  he 
was  not  used  to  the  new  school-house.  We  find 
that  we  must  have  a  particular  place  for  our  daily 
devotions.  When  a  lady  told  her  pastor  that 
her  place  for  prayer  was  the  large  drawing-room 
where  balls  were  held,  he  expressed  surprise. 
But  when  she  told  him  that  neither  at  mornine 
nor  at  night  could  she  be  alone  even  in  her  own 
room,  but  that  by  rising  an  hour  earlier,  the 
drawing-room  could  be  made  her  closet,  he  not 
only  ceased  to  wonder,  but  rejoiced  at  the  deter- 
mination of  a  Christian  woman  to  be  alone  at 
some  time,  and  in  some  place,  each  day,  with  her 
God.  "  Enter  into  thy  closet,  and  when  thou 
hast  shut  the  door,  pray."  It  was  the  word 
that  suited  an  age  which  made  public  worship 
the  substitute  for  secret  devotion.  If  there  be 
no  stated  time  and  no  special  place,  then  this 
duty  will  be  elbowed  along  by  other  duties,  quite 
through  the  day.  Habitual  devotion  is  essential 
to  maintaining  the  spirit  of  the  exercise.  It  is 
only  a  transcendental  delusion  with  which  some 
meet  Christ's  demand  for  ''  entering  the  closet," 
by  saying  "  if  I  am  always  in  the  praying  mood 
why  do  I  need  set  times  and  places?"  Christ 
knew  us  best.  He  said  it.  That  is  enough.  But 
men  have  asked,  whether  men  should  pray  daily 
at  the  regular  time,  if  they  find  themselves  out 


224       PRAYER   AS   A  THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

of  mood  for  the  exercise.  Will  not  such  a  prayer 
be  merely  formal  ?  But  this  is  to  make  the  ac- 
ceptableness  of  the  prayer  depend  on  our  feeling 
about  it.  The  prayer  we  may  think  little  of,  be- 
cause of  its  distractions,  may  be  our  best  prayer. 
It  had  at  least  the  outward  form  of  obedience. 
We  gave  God  the  recognition.  We  gave  him 
at  least  the  words.  We  tried  to  pray.  Bodily 
weariness  may  have  been,  just  for  that  hour,  al- 
most overpowering.  But  we  would  have  prayed 
if  we  could.  We  obeyed  our  Lord.  He  accepted 
the  attempt.  Sometimes,  too,  a  light  surprises 
the  praying  man  on  his  knees,  and  the  listless  be- 
ginning may  have  a  joyous  ending.  If  we  please 
Satan  by  omitting  the  duty  once,  because  not 
feeling  as  much  in  the  mood  to-day  as  yesterday, 
he  will  see  to  it  that  we  are  more  out  of  the 
mood  to-morrow.  By  the  time  it  has  been  twice 
or  thrice  omitted  the  habit  of  omission  is  formed, 
and  stated  prayer,  as  a  regular  exercise,  has 
ceased. 

WBesides  these  regular  seasons,  room  must  be 
made  for  special  periods  of  supplication,  the  fre- 
quency of  them  depending  upon  our  circum- 
stances, our  feeling,  and  the  burdens  laid  on  us. 
There  are  gales  of  grace.  The  ship  may  have  on 
board  her  cargo.  Her  clearance  is  made  out. 
Her  men  stand  in  their  places.     She  is  out  in  the 


PRAYER  IN  ITS  PROPHECY.        225 

stream,  and  swings  lazily  with  the  changing  tide. 
But  all  this  is  in  vain  until  the  spirits  of  the  air 
begin  to  sing  high  up  in  her  cordage.  The  flag 
lifts  on  the  topmast.  The  sluggish  sails,  that 
hung  close  to  the  yards,  begin  to  puff  out  their 
folds.  The  ripples  run  along  the  side.  Every 
inch  of  the  ship's  white-winged  canvas  is  now 
spread.  The  anchor  is  brought  home,  and  the 
yessel  begins  to  gather  headway  in  the  freshen- 
ing breeze;  and  by-and-by,  under  the  favoring 
gale,  she  leaps  from  wave  to  wave,  a  thing  of  life 
and  joy.  Yet  what  has  she  done  but  use  the 
glad  breeze  which  God  sent  from  the  upper  air  ? 

There  are  breathings  of  God  from  the  highest 
heavens.  They  incite  in  us  corresponding  breath- 
ings of  desire *tb  pray.  They  come  to  us  in  the 
midst  of  our  work,  while  we  walk  the  street,  and 
in  the  waking  hour  of  the  night.  There  are  instant 
petitions  that  spring  to  the  lips,  and  they  will  utter 
themselves.  The  prayer  prays  itself.  It  is  hardly 
ours;  for  it  is  not  born  of  self,  not  offered  by  act 
of  will.  We  cannot  stop  work  to  go  to  the 
closet,  nor  wait  to  bow  the  reverent  knee.  These 
*'  breathings  of  desire "  come  on  week-days  as 
well  as  on  Sundays.  Then  it  is  a  joy  to  pray,  a 
relief  to  pray.  It  may  be  some  special  truth, — 
truth  that  is  prayed  out  on  its  devotional  side; 
the  soul   revelling  in   it  with  a  kind   of  joyous 


226   PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

abandonment.  The  high  solemn  justice  of  God, 
it  may  be,  awes  us  and  subdues  us.  We  love  the 
white  splendor  of  the  throne  and  adore  him  that 
sitteth  thereon.  The  glory  of  the  attribute  rises 
before  us  and  fills  the  soul  with  a  new  sense  of 
righteousness  as  the  supreme  thing  in  the  uni- 
verse. Holiness  is  so  grand  and  clear  and  beauti- 
ful in  God  that  we  are  carried  away  with  sacred 
delight.  Or,  again,  the  prayer  gathers  itself 
about  God's  mercy  in  Jesus  Christ;  and  we  are 
lifted  into  a  sphere  of  singular  altitude,  where 
the  opened  heart  of  God  is  disclosed  in  his  un- 
speakable self-moved  love  for  man.  Or,  some 
human  soul  going  wrong  and  nearing  the  final 
precipice  up  which  there  is  no  climbing,  arrests 
attention,  and  that  man's  case  stands  before  us, 
and  prayer  is  a  plea;  and,  with  a  promise  for  an 
argument,  we  bring  that  soul  to  our  prayer-hear- 
ing God,  But  how  enumerate  these  words  of 
prayer,  these  subjects  that  rouse  its  flame,  these 
objects  that  stir  its  importunity  ?  The  gales  of 
grace  blow  fresh,  and  we  spread  wide  every  inch 
of  the  canvas  and  mean  to  make  the  most  of  the 
favored  hour.  Only  it  must  be  noted  that  these 
breezes  come  from  above  and  do  not  always 
blow.  You  cannot  set  a  time  and  say  "  now  let 
the  wind  blow."  God's  "set  times"  are  facts. 
*'  The  wind  bloweth  where  it  listeth."     We  must 


PRAYER  IN  ITS  PROPHECY.        22/ 

be  ready  to  take  the  gale.  We  cannot  order  up 
the  wind  at  will.  Always  some  blessing  is  ready 
in  answer  to  prayer;  but  these  special  garles  know 
no  will  but  that  of  God.  Expected  and  prayed 
for  they  are  to  be;  but,  above  all,  to  be  used 
when  they  begin  to  blow.  A  Christian,  finding 
some  special  ease  or  access  in  prayer,  surprised 
by  more  grace  than  had  been  sought,  overjoyed 
at  a  manifestation  that  comes  when  he  had  reason 
to  expect  God's  hidings  because  of  his  sins,  is  to 
take  the  utmost  paftns  not  to  disturb  the  flow, 
not  to  check  the  leading,  not  to  loiter  at  anchor 
when  the  wind  is  fair  and  fresh.  For,  rightly 
used,  these  winds  waft  one  well  on  in  the  heaven- 
ward voyage. 

And  now  comes  the  question,  whither  does 
this  praying  mood  naturally  bring  its  possessor  ? 
What  will  be  the  result  on  personal  character  of 
this  spirit  in  a  man  ?  That  it  broadens  him  for 
human  work,  that  it  achieves  for  him  moral  char- 
acter, that  it  lifts  his  thoughts  into  divinest 
realms,  that  it  not  only  helps  toward  the  passive 
Christian  virtues,  but  gives  a  man  moral  intre- 
pidity, that  it  tends  powerfully  to  mould  one's 
whole  moral  being — these  things  are  obvious. 
But  they  are  none  of  them  final  ends.  They  are 
only  preparations  for  something  further  on  and 
higher   up.     They  can  only  mean   heaven  is  for 


228       PRAYER  AS   A  THEORY  AND   A  FACT. 

siicJi  a  soul.  They  are  prophetic ;  and  no  think- 
ing man  can  doubt  that  which  such  a  prophecy 
declares.  These  things,  wrought  into  the  soul 
itself,  are  its  "  meetness  for  the  inheritance  of  the 
saints  in  light."    - 

But  what  do  the  same  facts  prophesy  for  the 
future  of  the  human  race  itself } 

The  stream  of  prayer  is  getting,  as  the  ages  go 
by,  to  be  more  full  and  clear.  The  river  widens 
with  the  centuries.  The  sediment  sinks  out  of 
sight.  The  waters  steadily  l)ecome  more  trans- 
parent. The  early  impurities  from  the  soils  of 
the  far-away  hills,  from  the  defilements  as  the 
river  ran  past  the  old  cities  where  men  dwelt,  no 
longer  color  so  deeply  the  waters.  The  stream 
is  working  itself  clear,  and  the  healthful  flow  is  a 
better  omen.  The  banks  are  getting  to  be  so  far 
apart  as  to  betoken  the  nearness  of  the  ocean  to 
which,  naturally,  such  a  river  must  run.  That 
there  is  more  praying  as  well  as  better  praying, 
is  certain.  It  is,  indeed,  sometimes  asserted  that, 
as  men  get  intelligent  they  cease  to  think  so 
much  of  prayer  and  to  practise  it  so  often.  And 
it  is,  of  course,  true,  that  many  a  praying  boy 
has  become  a  prayerless  man,  because  he  has  fed 
his  intellect  and  starved  his  soul;  exactly  as  he 
may  have  become  an  invalid  in  health  because  he 
has  neglected  his  body  while  developing  his  mind. 


PRAYER   IN   ITS   PROPHECY.  229 

This  is  brain  at  the  expense  of  soul  and  of  body. 
There  are  communities  and  ages  of  this  sort  of 
man.  But  nature  has  her  revenges.  She  knows 
how  to  deal  with  such  a  man  and  such  an  age. 
Pugilistic  families  die  out;  so  do  merely  intel- 
lectual families.  Nature  demands  a  balance,  and 
gets  it,  in  the  long  run.  She  insists  that  man  is 
a  tri-unity.  Seen  in  single  families,  in  single  gen- 
erations, and  even  in  single  natures,  the  moral 
nature  that  demands  prayer  would  seem  to  have 
a  winter  time,  in  which  it  dies  down  to  the 
bracts.  But  spring  comes  again.  The  growth, 
ere  it  died  down  in  winter,  left  in  each  joint  a 
resurrection  germ,  and  each  germ  has  future 
fructifying  power;  so  that  there  is  more  arrange- 
ment for  life  in  the  fact  of  apparent  death  than  in 
any  other  way.  The  moral  nature  comes  back  to 
its  prominence  inevitably ;  and  the  thrift  of  a  moral 
nature  is  in  its  prayer.  So  that  prayer  is  going 
to  multiply.  When  you  can  have  men's  bodies 
without  respiration,  and  men's  minds  without 
thought,  you  are  going  to  get  men  born  whose 
moral  nature  has  no  promptings  to  pray.  True, 
some  men  may  do  so  little  with  either  part  of 
their  nature,  that  you  may  begin  to  question  its 
existence.  But  it  is  there ;  suppressed,  misused, 
ignored, — but  it  is  there.  It  would  sometimes 
seem  as  if,  here  and  there,  a  man,  judging  by  his 


230       PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND    A    FACT. 

little  care  for  its  health,  had  no  body;  just  as 
some  men  and  some  whole  ages  have  had  so  little 
intellectual  life,  have  thought  so  little,  that  we 
are  half  ready  to  question  whether  they  have  any 
mind  of  their  own.  And  so  there  are  some  men 
and  some  ages,  here  whole  communities,  there 
great  nations,  which  develop  for  a  limited  time  the 
intellect  at  the  expense  of  the  soul,  and  we  might 
almost  think  that  they  had  none  of  the  devotional 
cravings  of  a  moral  nature.  But  hybrid  ages,  like 
hybrid  creatures,  run  out,  by  natural  law.  For 
moral  law  is  natural  law  as  really  as  is  physical 
law,  and  the  analogies  of  the  two  are  striking  and 
instructive.  And  yet,  at  certain  points,  it  would 
seem  as  if  now  animalism  and  now  mentalism 
were  the  main  thing.  Nowhere  is  intellect  so 
flourishing,  within  its  very  narrow  circle,  as 
when  it  has  almost  run  its  round  and  come 
down  to  death.  Seen  at  that  point,  it  would 
look  as  if  the  more  the  intelligence  the  less  the 
prayer.  You  may  find  an  intellectual  son  of 
Anak;  but  Anakim  are  sterile  and  die  out.  An 
age,  intellectual  at  the  expense  of  the  moral  na- 
ture, is  sure  to  go  under  in  the  struggle  for  ex- 
istence ;  exactly  as  an  age  when  men  have  feebler 
bodies  is  sure  to  succumb.  Small  cycles  show 
men  intellectual  here,  and  physically  well  "devel- 
oped   there,    without    the    moral    element    that 


PRAYER    IN   ITS   PROPHECY.  23 1 

voices  itself  in  prayer.  But  sweep  with  your 
glass  the  larger  cycle,  and  you  get  indications 
sure  and  clear  that  the  true  cycle  for  man  and 
age — the  coming  man  and  the  ultimate  age—  is 
the  cycle  of  the  human  trinity  of  body  and  mind 
and  soul,  each  with  clarified  longings,  each  de- 
veloped in  harmony  with  the  other,  all  blending 
in  a  demand  which  includes  praying  as  certainly 
as  breathing  and  thinking.  The  ultimate  man  is 
religious.  The  ultimate  age  is  prayerful.  The 
final  goal  is  a  "  sound  mind  in  a  sound  body  "  and 
both  dominated  by  a  sound  soul.  Cycle  will  work 
within  cycle  to  the  evolution  of  the  prayer.  The 
volume  will  swell  until  the  river  touches  the 
ocean. 

And  as  prayer  is  more,  so  it  is  purer.  It  must 
come  around,  in  the  cycle,  to  Eden, — the  better 
Eden  of  a  gospel  redemption.  Prayer  is  increas- 
ing in  quality  as  wdl  a^jrij^jimntity.  Not,  just  at 
this  point,  are  we  asking  whether  there  are  not 
better  answers  to  the  better  prayers  of  the  race ; 
but  here  and  now,  the  inquiry  is  concerning  the 
reflex  power  of  this  purified  body  of  augmented 
prayer  z(J>on  praying  men;  and  of  what  all  this 
means  upon  the  coming  ages,  in  the  moral 
quality  of  the  men  who  are  to  do  the  ultimate 
praying  of  the  race.  The  sanctifying  power  of 
prayer,  as  it   comes  to  be  a  force  for  human  de- 


232       PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

velopment,  is  the  present  point  of  view.  We 
can  see  its  natural  tendency  on  the  individual 
man.  Let  any  man  come  to  be  a  thoroughly 
and  an  intelligently  prayerful  man,  and  it  can- 
not be  otherwise  than  that  all  his  life  is  touched, 
even  to  its  outer  circumference,  by  this  habit. 
He  is  wont  to  bring  all  his  life  into  review  before 
his  holy  God  ;  to  mention  to  him  his  bodily  wants, 
to  ask  for  preservation  when  in  health  and  restor- 
ation when  he  is  sick;  to  bring  into  his  closet  his 
chief  trials  in  business,  and  his  infirmities  as  a 
man ;  his  sins,  asking  their  forgiveness  and  pledg- 
ing himself  to  struggle  against  their  repetition ; 
.his  social  duties,  his  political  relations,  his  Avork 
as  a  member  of  the  household  of  faith,  his  duty 
to  the  ignorant  millions  at  home  and  abroad — in 
short,  all  his  relations  to  God  and  to  man  come 
into  review,  when  he  is  alone  in  prayer  with  his 
Creator  and  his  Sovereign.  Can  a  man  do  this, 
and  not  be  a  morally  elevated  man  thereby  ?  Can 
any  considerable  number  of  men  do  it,  and  the 
community  not  be  benefited  thereby  ?  Can  there 
be  a  praying  age  that  is  not  an  approach  to  an 
ideal  age  ?  Can  the  race  have  a  great  future  that 
does  not  include  prayer  in  its  vast  volume  and  in 
its  clarifying  power  ?  The  ''  age  to  come  "  must 
needs  be  a  praying  age,  if  it  is  to  be  the  age  for 
which  the  best  men  hope. 


PRAYER  IN  ITS  PROPHECY.        233 

Among  the  reasons  for  believing  that  the  race 
is   to  see   a   culminating  era  of  prayer,  may  be 
mentioned :  First,  the   yearning   therefor,  which 
seems  to  be  a  heritage  from  our  old  Eden.     It  is 
equally  a  memory  and  a  prophecy;  and  which  it 
is,  at  any  given  hour,  depends  on  whether  one  is 
looking  backward  to  Paradise  lost,  or  looking  for- 
ward  to   Paradise   restored.     No   man   has  indi- 
vidual memories  of  Eden.     Nevertheless  no  one 
fact  in  sociology  is  getting  itself  to  be  more  uni- 
versally recognized  than  the  unity  of  the  human 
race.     The  facts  of  heredity  show  that  the  race 
is  one   as   certainly  as    that    every  man   is   one. 
Heredity   conjoined    with    personahty   is   abun- 
dantly  acknowledged    to-day.     The  scorning  of 
scorners  at  the  words  of  the  Scripture  about  the 
sin  of  fathers  visited  on  the  children,  has  gone 
by.     Traits  of  body  are  transmitted  because  of 
the  race-bond.     Heredity  can  only  be  true  of  a 
race  treated  as  one.     Nor  bodily  traits  only,  but 
mental  and  moral  as  well,  are  transmitted.    These 
inherited  peculiarities  are  seen  in  the  great  na-i 
tions.     And  closer  home,  in  our  social  life,  who 
cannot  discern  them  in  the  various  households  of 
our  acquaintance  ?     These  family  markings  may 
overleap  one  generation,  only  to  reappear  subse- 
quently in  some  individual,  in  peculiar  intensity. 
Nor  are  these  all  evil  traits.     Some  special  firm- 


234   PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

ness  of  conscience,  sonne  stalwart  trait  of  charac- 
ter inherited  from  remote  ancestry,  stamps  a  whole 
series  of  descendants.  You  can  trace  the  Hugue- 
not and  the  Pilgrim.  These  moral  advantages 
bestowed  on  a  child  as  the  result  of  a  Christian 
ancestry,  are  not  a  substitute  for  conversion,  but 
they  are  a  direct  preparation  therefor.  In  the 
great  world-history,  one  ancient  family,  devel- 
oping afterward  into  the  Hebrew  nation,  had 
special  religious  endowment.  Its  moral  convic- 
tions were  its  strongest  convictions.  It  had  a 
genius  for  religion.  It  held  the  primal  tradi- 
tions. It  kept,  in  some  fair  measure,  the  primal 
beliefs.  It  was  receptive  of  the  truths  given 
when  Adam  was  created  in  "  knowledge."  It 
held  in  memory,  more  or  less  definitely,  the  origi- 
nal impressions  with  which  God  dowered  Adam 
for  transmission  to  the  race.  The  broken  plan 
necessitated  a  change  in  the  teaching  of  man- 
kind. And  the  blur  of  the  primal  sin  must  have 
confused  the  subsequent  impressions.  But  some 
of  them  were  sure  to  come  out  along  the  ages  of 
the  progress  of  the  race.  Here  and  there,  not 
only  In  Jew  but  in  Gentile,  some  man  would  have 
the  "vital  eye;"  some  man  would  snatch  a 
glimpse  of  the  meaning  of  the  primal  promise  to 
Adam ;  some  bard  would  have  prophetic  vision. 
These  primal  impressions  went  into  the  stock  of 


PRAYER  IN  ITS  PROPHECY.        235 

the  race,  and  were  sure  to  be  revived.  These 
old  convictions  and  hopes,  these  echoes  of  Eden, 
would  be  transmitted  and  come  to  utterance  in 
men  of  genius  : — come  not  as  the  result  of  reason- 
ing, but  as  the  reproduction  of  dim  far-away  feel- 
ings that  craved  utterance.  They  were  inborn 
of  the  race,  and  must  get  voice  through  finer 
souls.  It  is  only  one  form  of  the  doctrine  of  he- 
redity to  hold  that  the  grander  traditions,  the 
primitive  beliefs,  have  reappeared  in  seers  and 
poets.  There  is  no  need  of  failing  to  recognize 
the  highest  flashes  of  human  inspiration.  For 
the  Hebrew  singers,  we  claim  that  over  and  above 
their  native  human  inspiration,  there  was  another 
inspiration,  that  of  God's  Holy  Spirit.  For  other 
seers,  we  may  not  claim  a  divine  impulse,  but  only 
that  through  heredity  they  were  made  heirs  of 
the  traditional  hopes  of  the  race.  Whenever,  on 
gifted  wing,  these  souls  have  soared  to  their  high- 
est flights,  they  have  seen  a  better  day  for  the 
race.  Matthew  Arnold's  pinion  broke  when  he 
sung  his  pessimistic  lines.  He  has  sung  nothing 
since.  Pessimism  cannot  sing.  Poets  are  men  of 
hope.  The  plainest  of  them  can  sing  of  ''the 
good  time  coming."  The  loftier  of  them  have  a 
"  golden  age,"  an  "  Elysium  "  to  be  gained.  "  A 
grand  far-off  event  "  is  the  goal  to  which  vision  is 
turned.     Just  what  it  is,  they  cannot  say;   for. 


236       PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

apart  from  the  Christian  faith,  they  can  only  see 
through  a  glass  darkly.  But  these  reminiscences 
from  Paradise,  these  convictions  that  an  Eden, 
better  than  that  lost,  shall  come  round  again,  are 
certainly  noteworthy.  They  seem  almost  like 
"whispers  dropt  from  the  heavenly  places:  "  like 
hints  falling  out  of  lips  that  need  only  in  addition 
the  divine  inspiration  to  speak  out  concerning 
the  "  millennium  glory."  As  the  waxing  moon 
draws  forth  the  great  waters  that  flow  about  all 
the  continents  of  the  world,  so  these  presentient 
souls  have  carried  about  all  the  centuries  of 
man's  severer  lot  the  tides  of  a  better  hope,  lest 
the  world's  heart  should  break.  Had  God  used 
reasonings,  the  world,  which  has  never  been  a 
reasoning  world,  might  have  missed  the  teaching. 
But  the  oracle  and  the  song,  the  flash,  of  the 
loftier  thought,  the  insight  of  the  souls  in  which 
feeling  is  quick  and  strong,  and,  over  against  all 
these,  the  v/aiting  of  the  great  congregation  of 
the  world  for  the  hopeful  word,  and  its  *'  amen  " 
in  the  response  of  all  who  hear  it  uttered — these 
things  are  immensely  significant.  True,  much  of 
this  impression  is  general  in  its  idea  of  what  the 
ripe  age  of  the  world  will  be.  Absence  of  cer- 
tain ills  is  the  glory  of  the  coming  age,  with  some. 
With  others  it  is  a  better  civilization.  Men  just 
out  of  the  bondage  of  despotism  make  it  consist 


PRAYER  IN  ITS  PROPHECY.        237 

^largely  In  freedom.  Sociologists  think  of  better 
conditions  in  which  labor  and  capital,  the  claims 
of  the  body  and  the  soul,  and  the  artificial  and 
real  distinctions  of  life,  shall  be  better  adjusted. 
Men  think  of  a  time  when  war  shall  cease,  when 
equal  rights  shall  be  enjoyed,  when  intellectual 
and  moral  development  shall  reach  the  highest 
stages.  They  agree,  however,  in  one  thing,  they 
look  onward.  Something  better  is  to  come. 
The  ages  wait.  There  is  expectation.  But  when 
it  is  to  be  and  in  what  way  the  coming  crowning 
age  is  to  be  best  and  grandest,  those  men  who 
are  untouched  by  a  higher  than  human  inspira- 
tion cannot  say.  There  is  an  instructive  pro- 
phecy in  human  hearts,  as  Milton  sings,  "  that 
time  will  run  back  and  fetch  the  age  of  gold." 
Shelley  calls  it  the  age  where  "the  Paradise 
Islands  gleam."  St.  Simon  has  it  "that  the 
Golden  age  is  not  behind,  but  before  us."  Ten- 
nyson hopes  for  a  far  off  time,  at  last,  when 
peace  will  come,  "  and  every  winter  change  to 
spring."  Pope  will  have  it  true  that  there  comes 
an  age  when  we  shall  see 

"  Peace  o'er  the  world  her  olive  wand  extend, 
And  white-robed  Innocence  from  heaven  descend  ;  " 

And  Whittier  adds, 

"  I  fold  o'er  wearied  hands  and  wait, 
In  calm  assurance  of  the  good." 


Cowper  sings, 

"  The  dwellers  in  the  vales  and  on  the  rocks 
Shout  to  each  other,  and  the  mountain  tops 
From  distant  mountains  catch  the  flying  joy  ; 
Till,  nation  after  nation  taught  the  strain, 
Earth  rolls  the  rapturous  hosanna  round." 

Only  the  age  that  is  devotional  as  well  as  practi- 
cal in  its  piety,  can  fill  out  these  yearnings  in 
glad  satisfaction. 

And,  again,  the  ultimate  age  may  be  argued 
from  the  aspirations  of  praying  men.  Their  better 
devotional  moments  have  in  them  a  kind  of  pro- 
phecy. Such  men  are  led  in  their  prayers.  They 
feel  that  the  Inspirer  is  the  Answerer  of  their 
special  petition.  God  has  laid  the  world  on 
some  men  as  a  burden.  They  note  every  fact 
that  transpires  in  providence  as  a  hindrance 
or  a  help  to  the  final  glory.  Missionaries  are 
asking  that  prayer  may  be  concentrated  now 
for  this  and  now  for  that  special  feature  of 
their  work.  Temperance  organizations,  educa- 
tional societies,  and  Y.  M.  C.  associations  are 
requesting  that  some  particular  Sabbath  or  week 
day  shall  be  devoted  to  prayer  for  their  special- 
ties. The  "  Week  of  Prayer  "  has  obtained  a  kind 
of  recogitition  in  the  religious  calendar  of  many 
churches.  And  a  "  day  of  prayer  for  Colleges  " 
is  observed  by  the  more  intelligent  Christians  of 
the  nation.     In  the  service  of  all  these  days,  there 


PRAYER  IN  ITS  PROPHECY.        239 

is  the  onward  glance,  the  prophetic  hope.  The 
nearer  thing  is  the  specific  object,  but  always 
there  is  the  reference  to  the  larger  aim  and 
broader  expectation  of  a  redeemed  world. 

This  profound  impression  of  praying  men  is 
not  precisely  what  we  should,  at  first,  naturally 
expect.  For,  each  of  these  men  looks  for  final 
and  personal  salvation  in  heaven.  He  was  con- 
sciously "  saved  "  when  converted.  He  has  as- 
surance of  ''  eternal  life  "  for  himself.  He  has 
put  salvation  just  where  our  Lord  places  it,  as  the 
direct  outcome  of  personal  faith.  He  believed 
unto  salvation.  He  took  Christ  as  his  own  Saviour. 
He  has  grasped  the  promise,  "  He  that  believeth 
on  the  Son  hath  everlasting  life;"  and  he  sees 
that  this  means  heaven,  and  does  not  at  all  re- 
quire a  golden  age  for  the  human  race  on  earth 
in  the  distant  future.  In  point  of  fact  some  good 
men  have  either  denied  or  ignored  the  world's 
conversion  in  the  coming  age ;  so  unlike  are  the 
spiritual  salvation  of  a  soul  and  the  prevalence 
on  earth  of  "Christ's  kingdom.."  That  the  lat- 
ter should  have  been  so  pressed  upon  praying 
men  in  their  best  devotional  hours,  that  some 
have  so  enjoyed  the  holy  prospect  of  a  time  when 
the  nations  of  the  world  shall  be  under  the  sway 
of  Christ,  must  be  looked  upon  as  a  kind  of  pro- 
phetic intimation  given  to  those  who  live  much  in 


240       PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

communion  with  God.  Indeed,  some  good  men 
do  not  know  the  full  meaning  of  their  own 
prayers.     Keble  sings, 

**  And  if  some  tone  be  false  or  low, 
What  are  all  prayers  beneath 
But  cries  of  babes  that  cannot  know 
Half  the  deep  thought  they  breathe?  " 

And  this  intercessory  prayer — prayer  for 
others — which  is  used  so  often  by  the  great  be- 
lievers, in  the  Bible  story,  and  which  has  been 
alike  model  and  inspiration  for  good  men  in  all 
ages,  has  nearly  always  the  onward  glance;  and 
it  grows  stronger  for  the  special  victory  by  the 
remembrance  of  the  final  conquest  of  God. 

There  stands  out  on  the  sacred  page  as  one  of 
the  grandest  triumphs  of  Prayer,  the  case  of 
Moses.  God  was  about  to  destroy  the  people. 
Moses,  type  of  the  Great  Intercessor,  prays  that 
he  wall  not  do  it.  **  Blot  me,  also,  out  of  thy 
book."  He  obtains  mercy  tow^ard  the  people. 
But  God  said  that  he  himself  could  not  go  as 
their  Leader  in  the  journey  through  the  wilder- 
ness. He  would  send  his  angel  in  his  stead. 
Moses  is  in  agony.  "  If  thou  go  not  with  me 
carry  us  not  up  hence."  He  had  rather  die  than 
not  have  God  with  the  people.  And  again  and 
again  in  those  long  and  weary  years  of  the  wan- 
dering, Moses  prayed  for  the  people,  and  pleaded 
for  them  the  promise  of  God.     But  in  urging,  in 


PRAYER    IN   ITS    PROPHECY.  24 1 

prayer,  what    has  been  called   the  ''great   Rest 
Promise  "  of  the  Bible,  he  used  but  a  part  of  it 
in  his  plea  for  Israel.     It  meant  the  ''  Rest  "  of 
the  further  ages.     For  the  ''  Rest  Promise  "  was 
repeated  in  David's  time;  i:  not  having  been  ex- 
hausted when  Joshua  entered  Canaan.     It  reap- 
peared in  Paul's  time.     It  comes  out  again  in  the 
"  Revelation  "  of  John.     It  finds  its  greatest  ap- 
plication,   of    course,    in    the    heavenly    world. 
"  There  remaineth,"  i.e.,  it  remaineth  true,  "  there 
remaineth  therefore  a  rest  to  the  people  of  God." 
But  while  there  is  a  heavenly,  there  is  included 
in  this  unexpected  rest-promise  an  earthly  bless- 
ing.    And  in  the  great  argument  of  his  prayers, 
Moses  uses  the  plea  of  what  will  the  nations  be 
likely  to  say  if  Israel  is  left  of  her  God,  and  also 
the  plea  of  God's  ov/n  glory  among  all  the  people. 
Moses  feels  that  he  is  acting  on  the  theatre  of 
the  world,  and  the  drama  is  to  culminate  in  the 
further  ages.  Samuel  was,  likewise,  an  interces- 
sor, asking  for  the  near,  but  having  his  eye  on  the 
cause   of   his    God.     Elijah  was  conspicuously  a 
prophet  of  national  life,  and  used  his  powers  of 
intercession    for   results   beyond    the    immediate 
surroundings  of  his  personal  career.    Consciously 
or   unconsciously  he  was  acting  in  such  a  way 
that,  far  off,  in  New  Testament  times,  he  should 
be   quoted   as   an   example   of   a   righteous   man 
16 


242       PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A    FACT. 

whose  prayer  avails  with  God.  David's  prayers 
and  songs  have  in  them  the  foregleam.  So,  too, 
have  the  great  prophets,  as  they  see  the  glory  of 
the  Lord  filling  the  whole  earth.  But  it  is  in  the 
Epistles  of  Paul  that  the  thought  culminates; 
and  his  broadening  vision  embraces  not  only  sal- 
vation for  the  individual  saint,  but  salvation  for 
the  ages  as  well.  These  great  human  intercessors 
lift  prayers  for  the  world  that  are  to  bring  abun- 
dant answers.  But  the  chief  reason  for  looking  for 
an  age,  one  of  the  main  characteristics  of  which  is 
its  happy  prayerful  communion  with  God,  is  the 
express  declaration  of  the  Sacred  Scriptures. 

Let  it  be  at  once  granted  that  a  large  number 
of  Old  Testament  verses  often  quoted  in  support 
of  this  position,  are  not  direct  proof  texts.  Let 
us  yield  the  point  to  the  critics,  that  verses,  like 
those  in  Isaiah,  about  the  ''  Lord's  House  as  es- 
tablished on  the  top  of  the  mountains,  and  all 
nations  shall  flow  unto  it,"  had  their  literal  fulfil- 
ment in  the  restoration  from  the  Captivity  and 
the  rebuilding  of  the  Temple  at  Jerusalem;  and 
that  they  had  the  beginning  of  their  spiritual  ful- 
filment in  the  gospel  day,  at  the  Pentecostal 
gathering.  But  if  this  be  granted,  there  is  still  a 
prophetic  trend  to  the  words.  They  have  out- 
look. There  is  the  vital  glance  in  them.  If  it 
were  too  much  to  claim  from  such  declarations  a 


PRAYER   IN    ITS   PROPHECY.  243 

literal  restoration  of  Jerusalem,  it  is  not  too  much 
to  see  in  them  a  glimpse  of  an  age  that  shall  be 
a  better  restoration  than  that  would  be.  The  full 
type  shall  be  a  restored  Eden  rather  than  a  re- 
stored Jerusalem.  But  the  old  glory  of  Jerusalem 
rebuilt,  shall  help  us  by  its  suggestiveness.  The 
great  glory  is  not  of  a  coming  earthly  city,  but 
of  a  coming  earthly  age.  As  with  one  so  with 
dozens  of  similar  verses  written  before  the  Res- 
toration. For  the  historic  view  and  the  prophet- 
ic differ  as  do  the  two  views  of  a  mountain  range. 
History  stands  before  the  range,  counts  the 
mountain  heads  and  names  them  separately  and 
gives  the  width  of  the  valleys  between  them. 
Prophecy  goes  around  to  the  end  of  the  range 
and  sees  the  hill  tops  only.  From  this  point,  the 
valleys  disappear.  The  hills  blend  into  one. 
They  are  in  the  same  line  of  vision.  To  see  the 
near  is  to  see  also  the  more  distant.  The  trend 
of  the  events  is  the  prophetic  vision  of  them — ■ 
their  connection,  not  especially  in  point  of  time, 
but  in  similarity  of  character.  Any  doom  seen, 
has  a  glance  onward  to  the  final  doom;  any  sal- 
vation has  Christ's  salvation  in  view ;  any  res- 
toration sees  also  a  restored  age;  and  the  bless- 
ing of  a  "  spirit  of  grace  and  supplication  "  sees 
also  the  final  age  of  man's  "  communion  with 
God." 


244       PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

But  the  wonderful  Second  Psalm,  a  Sacred 
Drama,  is  a  direct  unfolding  of  God's  plan  of  a 
final  glory  of  the  world.  It  is  not,  here,  a 
prophet  politically  concerned  for  the  fortunes  of 
a  single  city,  but  a  seer  looking  out  on  the  ages. 
God  is  one  of  the  dramatis  personce.  He  bids 
the  Son,  another  of  the  persons,  who  is  seated 
on  a  holy  hill,  to  ask  of  him,  according  to  an  ar- 
rangement, the  whole  heathen  world  for  a  pos- 
session. God  would  dwell  among  the  nations. 
If  some  will  not  let  him  rule,  they  are  to  be  de- 
stroyed ;  but  there  shall  be  vast  multitudes  who 
accept  his  reign. 

The  ultimate  ages  shall  be  allegiant  to  God. 
Therefore,  kings  are  exhorted  to  enter  into  the 
closest  relation  to  Christ.  And  the  drama  closes 
with  the  words  of  blessing  on  the  men  of  the  ages 
to  come  who  put  their  trust  in  the  Lord.  It  is 
the  Psalm  that  sees,  through  the  neareV  din,  the 
peace  of  the  final  age  of  communion  with  Christ. 
Daniel  saw  the  "  Stone  that  filled  the  whole 
earth,"  and  said  that  unto  the  Son  of  Man  "was 
given  dominion  and  glory  and  a  kingdom,  that  all 
people,  nations,  and  languages  should  serve  him." 
And  the  parables  of  the  growth  of  "  the  king- 
dom "  given  by  our  Lord,  have  this  far-away  air. 
The  grain  of  mustard  seed  has  no  end  of  expand- 
ing.    The  leaven  leavens,  at  length,  all  the  meal. 


PRAYER  IN  ITS  PROPHECY.        245 

And  this  has  not  been  true  of  all  individuals,  and 
cannot  be  true  of  all  the  past  members  of  the 
race.  It  can  be  argued  as  true  only  of  those  liv- 
ing in  the  final  age.  Or  if  it  be  understood  as  a 
"parable  of  trend  rather  than  as  a  parable  of 
result,"  there  is  no  mistaking  the  direction  of  the 
trend.  In  that  age,  all  nations  are  to  serve  the 
Lord  and  to  come  and  worship  before  him.  The 
same  great  fact  of  a  coming  age  is  to  be  held, 
whether  one  interprets  the  millennial  utterances 
mathematically  or  metaphorically;  whether  one 
believes  in  a  post-millennium  or  a  pre-millennium, 
in  any  millennium  or  in  no  millennium  at  all. 
All  that  it  is  here  necessary  to  maintain  is  that 
an  age  is  coming  to  which  so  much  of  the  world's 
prayer  has  looked,  for  which  it  has  been  a  prep- 
aration and  in  which  it  culminates.  But  of  all 
the  glowing  writers  who  have  seen  the  better  age 
and  foretold  its  characteristic  of  happy  devotion, 
none  can  equal  in  grasp  of  thought  or  swift- 
winged  accuracy  of  word  the  apostle  Paul.  He 
revels  "  in  the  ages  to  come,"  or  as  his  words 
might  be  given  "  in  the  ages  that  are  coming  on." 
The  idea  is  of  a  grand  succession,  interrupted  it 
may  be  here  and  there,  but  still  on  the  whole  ad- 
vancing toward  the  age  of  ages,  when  all  will 
have  "come  on."  It  is  "the  dispensation  of  the 
fulness  of    times  "  toward  which  he  is    looking. 


246   TRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

He  sees  Christ  the  inheritor  of  the  ages,  as  the 
older  and  dimmer  prophets  saw  him  as  having  an 
inheritance  among  the  nations.  The  ages,  in  the 
glowing  conception  of  the  first  part  of  his  Epistle 
to  the  Ephesians,  are  Christ's  heritage;  being  a 
purchased  possession.  And  all  redeemed  men 
then  living,  and  all  those  who,  at  an  earlier  time 
than  the  Ephesians  had  first  heard  the  gospel, 
constitute  a  part  of  the  new  redeemed  age — an 
age  which  was  to  have  such  grand  succession  of 
ages  when  all  things  were  to  be  summed  up  in 
Christ.  And  therefore  it  is  that  Paul  says  he 
"  makes  mention  of  them,"  in  this  age-relation, 
*'  in  his  prayers,"  so  that  they  also  may  see  more 
clearly  the  glory  of  Christ's  inheritance  in  the 
ages.  All  this  is  not  heaven ;  it  is  earth.  It  is 
not  the  glory  of  the  skies  but  of  the  *' ages  to 
come,"  "  in  the  fulness  of  the  dispensation  of 
times."  He  sees,  further  on  in  the  same  Epistle, 
the  Gentile  world  becoming  ''  fellow-heirs."  And 
he  continues:  *' For  this  cause  I  bow  my  knees 
unto  the  Father."  In  other  Epistles  the  same 
idea  is  always  emerging.  In  some  of  them  the 
fervor  of  his  soul  interrupts  the  flow  of  his  argu- 
ment, and  the  broad,  strong,  victorious  concep- 
tion of  the  ultimate  age  bursts  forth  here  in  dox- 
ology  and  there  in  glad  and  glowing  prayer. 
*'  Now  unto  him  that    is  able   to   do    exceeding 


PRAYER    IN    ITS   PROPHECY.  247 

abundantly  above  all  that  we  ask  or  think,  ac- 
cording to  the  power  that  worketh  in  us,— unto 
him  be  the  glory  in  the  Church  through  all  ages, 
world  without  end."  Nor  is  this  final  clause  a 
mere  collection  of  synonomous  words.  It  is 
given  in  the  margin  of  the  Revised  Version,  "  age 
of  ages."  In  such  an  "  age  of  ages  "  the  prayer 
may  differ  little,  in  many  respects,  from  the 
praise.  It  may  not  be  without  petition,  but  it 
will  abound  in  ascription  and  thanksgiving. 

It  must  be  understood  that  the  inquiry  is  not 
now  about  the  victory  of  the  Church;  that  is  as- 
sured. Or  about  the  success  of  organized  Chris- 
tianity over  all  religions;  that  is  guaranteed. 
Nor  is  It  the  question  about  a  time  when  every 
man  on  the  planet  will  be  a  Christian  disciple. 
It  is  the  rather  a  recognition  of  a  trend,  the  cul- 
mination of  prophetic  feeling  and  of  Scripture 
intimation.  It  is  the  expectation  of  an  "  age  to 
come,"  the  age  of  the  ages,  when  literature  and 
law,  the  tone  of  human  sentiment,  the  "spirit  of 
the  time,"  the  lines  of  popular  thought,  the  ac- 
tive convictions  and  the  settled  principles  of  men, 
shall  be  thoroughly,  and  therefore  devotionally, 
Christian;  when  the  arts  and  sciences  and  habits 
of  life,  the  employments  and  recreations  of  man- 
kind shall  be  ennobled  by  a  consciousness  of  God 
above  and  eternity  before  them ;  when  thought 


248   PRAYER  AS  A  THEORY  AND  A  FACT. 

shall  be  run  in  Christian  moulds;  when  faith  in 
God  and  so  in  good  men  shall  cast  out  doubt  and 
distrust;  when  prayer  to  God  shall  be  natural 
and  universal;  when  the  human  capacity  for  lov- 
ing shall  be  so  enlarged  by  the  loving  of  God  that 
men  shall  love  each  other  with  holy  love,  thus 
lifting  an  instinct  to  the  rank  of  a  religious  vir- 
tue ;  when  work  shall  be  worship  and  the  prayer 
of  the  lip  in  the  closet  shall  act  itself  out  all  day 
long  in  the  prayer  of  the  life.  That  would  be 
the  age  of  prayer  and  of  all  else  that  goes  natur- 
ally and  happily  therewith.  For  there  is  no  duty 
of  the  state  or  the  household,  of  the  church  or 
the  school,  of  the  public  or  the  private  life,  that  is 
not  enriched  by  a  devotional  piety.  And  when 
such  enrichment  and  enlargement  become  the 
persuasive  and  animating  spirit  of  mankind,  then 
will  be  shown  the  fact  that  the  Christianity  which 
can  save  an  individual  can  save  also  an  age. 

How  this  will  be  brought  about  we  may  not 
say.  We  simply  mark  the  trend,  and  call  atten- 
tion to  the  prophecy  it  holds  in  itself.  This  only 
is  to  be  said :  that  nothing  in  the  moral  universe 
of  God  is  so  strong,  so  sure,  so  set  upon  reaching 
its  final  goal,  as  a  moral  trend. 

In  some  aspects  of  present  moral  movement,  it 
would  seem  that  the  "  age  of  ages  "  was  very  far 
off  and  very  slow  in  coming  on.      Gigantic  wrongs 


PRAYER  IN  ITS  PROPHECY.        249 

still  raise  their  head  and  are  loud  in  their  claim. 
Political  and  social  and  religious  errors  abound. 
The  foes  are  able  and  unscrupulous.  But  God 
has  all  the  forces  of  the  world  in  his  hands.  He 
lets  them  at  times  do  their  worst.  He  manages 
them  when  they  seem  most  free.  He  lets  the 
eddy  flow  backward,  but  the  law  of  the  river  is 
that  it  runs  onward  and  downward ;  its  very  vol- 
ume and  direction  is  what  makes  the  eddy  near 
the  shore.  God  keeps  accounts.  God  times 
events.  Just  so  many  defeats  of  a  wise  measure, 
before  it  is  possible  to  enact  it.  The  defeats  all 
count  toward  the  result.  Just  so  many  drops 
of  blood  from  a  slave's  back,  the  very  last  one  of 
them  necessary,  and  the  time  comes  for  Emanci- 
pation. Just  one  more  turn  of  the  screw  of 
Roman  despotism,  and  Christ  is  born.  The  pro- 
cess, from  this  point  of  view,  seems  steady  and 
slow.  It  is  the  favorite  one  of  many  because, 
just  now,  scientists  are  making  prominent  the 
facts  that  show  development  to  be  a  law.  But 
it  is  coming  to  be  seen  that  there  may  be  devel- 
opment through  sudden  introduction  of  forces 
sometimes  destructive  and  sometimes  saving. 
In  nature  we  have  the  sun  slowly  rising  and 
steadily  mounting  the  sky,  and  we  have,  as  well, 
the  instant  flash  of  the  lightning  splintering  the 
oak  that  had  used  a  century  of  the  best  sunshine. 


250       PRAYER   AS   A   THEORY   AND   A   FACT. 

Moral  catastrophes  and  salvations  are  sometimes 
as  strangely  sudden  for  single  souls,  and  for 
single  ages.  We  read  of  nations  to  be  morally 
''born  in  a  day,"  as  we  see  them  sometimes 
politically  springing  up  into  life  in  an  instant  of 
time.  What  God  has  in  reserve,  what  concen- 
tration of  human  prayer  and  effort,  on  which  the 
power  of  mighty  moral  miracle  is  to  rest,  who 
can  say  ?  All  moral  reformation  heretofore  has 
begun  and  culminated  in  prayer.  The  energy, 
pervasive  as  is  the  light  that  so  many  use  always 
and  seldom  recognize,  which  enters  into  all  Chris- 
tian effort  and  moulds  it  and  brings  it  into  har- 
mony with  the  will  and  work  of  God,  is  that  of 
the  prayers  of  prayerful  men. 

"  More  things  are  wrought  by  prayer 
Than  this  world  dreams  of.     Wherefore  let  thy  voice 
Rise  like  a  fountain  for  me  night  and  day. 
For  what  are  men  better  than  sheep  or  goats 
That  nourish  a  blind  life  within  the  brain, 
If,  knowing  God,  they  lift  not  hands  of  prayer, 
Both  for  themselves,  and  those  who  call  them  friend. 
For  so  the  whole  round  world  is  every  way 
Bound  by  gold  chains  about  the  feet  of  God." 


INSTRUCTIVE  VOLUMES. 

Hij  t/iat  etninent  author 

REV.    E.    F.    BURR,   D.  D.,   LI..  D. 


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